...so 


BERKEtBY^V 

LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  Of 
CALIFORNIA^/ 


THE  WRITINGS   OF 
HARRIET  BEECHER   STOWE 

WITH  BIOGRAPHICAL   INTRODUCTIONS 

PORTRAITS,   AND    OTHER 

ILL  USTRA  TIONS 

IN  SIXTEEN  VOLUMES 
VOLUME   XIII 


HOUGHTON,   MIFFLIN  &  CO. 


WE  AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 


,  t\)t  Hecoras  of  an  ZCJnfastyiottable 


(SEQUEL  TO  "MY  WIFE  AND  I") 


BY 


HARRIET   BEECHER   STOWE 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND   COMPANY 


1898 


Copyright,  1873, 
BY  J.  B.  FORD  &  CO. 

Copyright,  1896, 
BY  HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  &  CO. 

All  rights  reserved. 


The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  U.  S.  A. 
Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  H.  O.  Houghton  &  Co. 


(A;  L/- 
S 


CONTENTS 

CHJLP.  FAGS 

I.  THE  OTHER  SIDE  OF  THE  STREET        ....  1 

II.  How  WE  BEGIN  LIFE 17 

III.  THE  FAMILY  DICTATOR  AT  WORK         .       .        .        .24 

IV.  EVA  TO  HARRY'S  MOTHER 35 

V.  A  TEMPEST  IN  A  TEAPOT        .       .  .       .        .45 

VI.  THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WATERS         ....  61 

VII.  LETTERS  AND  AIR-CASTLES     .        .        .       .       .        .  70 

VIII.  THE  VANDERHEYDEN  FORTRESS  TAKEN    ...  78 

IX.  JIM  AND  ALICE 87 

X.  MR.  ST.  JOHN.        ........  94 

XL  AUNT  MARIA  CLEARS  HER  CONSCIENCE        .        .        .106 

XII.  WHY  CAN'T  THEY  LET  us  ALONE       ....  122 

XIII.  OUR  "EVENING"  PROJECTED        '.       .       .        .        .  133 

XIV.  MR.  ST.  JOHN  is  OUTARGUED 142 

XV.  GETTING  READY  TO  BEGIN 150 

XVI.  THE  MINISTER'S  VISIT  .        .        .        ...        .        .  162 

XVII.  OUR  FIRST  THURSDAY 167 

XVIII.  RAKING  UP  THE  FIRE 181 

XIX.  A  LOST  SHEEP 186 

XX.  EVA  TO  HARRY'S  MOTHER 190 

XXI.  BOLTON  AND  ST.  JOHN 196 

XXII.  Two  VIEWS  OF  LIFE 202 

XXIII.  THE  SISTERS  OF  ST.  BARNABAS 209 

XXIV.  EVA  TO  HARRY'S  MOTHER 215 

XXV.  AUNT  MARIA  ENDEAVORS  TO  SET  MATTERS  RIGHT    .  220 

XXVI.  SHE  STOOD  OUTSIDE  THE  GATE 230 

XXVII.  ROUGH  HANDLING  OF  SORE  NERVES    ....  239 

XXVIII.  REASON  AND  UNREASON 247 

XXIX.  AUNT  MARIA  FREES  HER  MIND 255 

XXX.  A  DINNER  ON  WASHING  DAY 259 

XXXI.  WHAT  THEY  TALKED  ABOUT 270 

XXXII.   A  MISTRESS  WITHOUT  A  MAID 281 

XXXIII.  A  FOUR-FOOTED  PRODIGAL 292 

XXXIV.  GOING  TO  THE  BAD 302 

XXXV.   A  SOUL  IN  PERIL                                                               .  312 


218 


VI  CONTENTS 

XXXVI.  LOVE  IN  CHRISTMAS  GKEENS 323 

XXXVII.   THEREAFTER? 333 

XXXVIIL   "WE  MUST  BE  CAUTIOUS" 340 

XXXIX.  SAYS  SHE  TO  HER  NEIGHBOR — WHAT?       .        .        .  347 

XL.  THE  ENGAGEMENT  ANNOUNCED 351 

XLI.  LETTER  FROM  EVA  TO  HARRY'S  MOTHER    .       .       .  357 

XLII.  JIM'S  FORTUNES 369 

XLIII.  A  MIDNIGHT  CAUCUS  OVER  THE  COALS       .       .       .  381 

XLIV.  FLUCTUATIONS 389 

XLV.  THE  VALLEY  OF  THE  SHADOW 395 

XL VI.  WHAT  THEY  ALL  SAID  ABOUT  IT        .       .        .        .  399 

XLVII.    "!N  THE  FORGIVENESS  OF  SINS".       ,       »  411 

XL VIII.  THE  PEARL  CROSS 419 

XLIX.   THE  UNPROTECTED  FEMALE    ......  428 

L.  EVA  TO  HARRY'S  MOTHER   ......  440 

LI.  THE  HOUR  AND  THE  WOMAN 444 

LII.  EVA'S  CONSULTATIONS 448 

LIII.   WEDDING  PRESENTS 453 

LIV.  MARRIED  AND  A' 457 

The  frontispiece  (The  Vanderheyden  Fortress  Taken,  page  80)  is  from 

a  drawing  by  Alice  Barber  Stephens,  who  also  drew  the  vignette  on  the 
engraved  title-page. 


WE  AND   OUK  NEIGHBORS 


CHAPTER   I 

THE    OTHER    SIDE    OF    THE    STREET 

"WHO  can  have  taken  the  Ferguses'  house,  sister?" 
said  a  brisk  little  old  lady,  peeping  through  the  window 
blinds.  "It 's  taken!  Just  come  here  and  look!  There  's 
a  cart  at  the  door." 

"You  don't  say  so! "  said  Miss  Dorcas,  her  elder  sister, 
flying  across  the  room  to  the  window  blinds,  behind  which 
Mrs.  Betsey  sat  discreetly  ensconced  with  her  knitting 
work.  "Where?  Jack,  get  down,  sir!"  This  last  re 
mark  was  addressed  to  a  rough-coated  Dandie  Dinmont 
terrier,  who  had  been  winking  in  a  half  doze  on  a  cushion 
at  Miss  Dorcas's  feet.  On  the  first  suggestion  that  there 
was  something  to  be  looked  at  across  the  street,  Jack  had 
ticked  briskly  across  the  room,  and  now  stood  on  his  hind 
legs  on  an  old  embroidered  chair,  peering  through  the  slats 
as  industriously  as  if  his  opinion  had  been  requested. 
"Get  down,  sir!"  persisted  Miss  Dorcas.  But  Jack  only 
winked  contumaciously  at  Mrs.  Betsey,  whom  he  justly 
considered  in  the  light  of  an  ally,  planted  his  toe-nails  more 
firmly  in  the  embroidered  chair-bottom,  and  stuck  his  nose 
further  between  the  slats,  while  Mrs.  Betsey  took  up  for 
him,  as  he  knew  she  would. 

"Do  let  the  dog  alone,  Dorcas!  He  wants  to  see  as 
much  as  anybody." 


2  WE   AND  OUR   NEIGHBORS 

"Now,  Betsey,  how  am  I  ever  to  teach  Jack  not  to 
jump  on  these  chairs,  if  you  will  always  take  his  part? 
Besides,  next  we  shall  know,  he  '11  be  barking  through  the 
window  blinds,"  said  Miss  Dorcas. 

Mrs.  Betsey  replied  to  the  expostulation  by  making  a 
sudden  diversion  of  subject.  "  Oh,  look,  look ! "  she 
called,  "that  must  be  she,"  as  a  face  with  radiant,  dark 
eyes,  framed  in  an  aureole  of  bright  golden  hair,  appeared 
in  the  doorway  of  the  house  across  the  street.  "She  's  a 
pretty  creature,  anyway  —  much  prettier  than  poor  dear 
Mrs.  Fergus." 

"Henderson,  you  say  the  name  is?"  said  Miss  Dorcas. 

"Yes.  Simons,  the  provision  man  at  the  corner,  told 
me  that  the  house  had  been  bought  by  a  young  editor,  or 
something  of  that  sort,  named  Henderson  —  somebody  that 
writes  for  the  papers.  He  married  Van  Arsdel's  daugh 
ter." 

"What,  the  Van  Arsdels  that  failed  last  spring?  One 
of  our  mushroom  New  York  aristocracy  —  up  to-day  and 
down  to-morrow ! "  commented  Miss  Dorcas,  with  an  air 
of  superiority.  "Poor  things!  " 

"A  very  imprudent  marriage,  I  don't  doubt,"  sighed 
Mrs.  Betsey.  "These  upstart  modern  families  never  bring 
up  their  girls  to  do  anything." 

"She  seems  to  be  putting  her  hand  to  the  plough, 
though,"  said  Miss  Dorcas.  "See,  she  actually  is  lifting 
out  that  package  herself!  Upon  my  word,  a  very  pretty 
creature.  I  think  we  must  take  her  up." 

"The  Ferguses  were  nice,"  said  Mrs.  Betsey,  "though 
he  was  only  a  newspaper  man,  and  she  was  a  nobody ;  but 
she  really  did  quite  answer  the  purpose  for  a  neighbor  — 
not,  of  course,  one  of  our  sort  exactly,  but  a  very  respect 
able,  lady-like  little  body." 

"Well,"  said  Miss  Dorcas  reflectively,  "I  always  said 
it  doesn't  do  to  carry  exclusiveness  too  far.  Poor  dear 


THE   OTHER   SIDE   OF  THE   STREET  3 

papa  was  quite  a  democrat.  He  often  said  that  he  had 
seen  quite  good  manners  and  real  refinement  in  people  of 
the  most  ordinary  origin." 

"And,  to  be  sure,"  said  Mrs.  Betsey,  "if  one  is  to  be 
too  particular,  one  does  n't  get  anybody  to  associate  with. 
The  fact  is,  the  good  old  families  we  used  to  visit  have 
either  died  off  or  moved  off  up  into  the  new  streets,  and 
one  does  like  to  have  somebody  to  speak  to." 

"Look  there,  Betsey,  do  you  suppose  that's  Mr.  Hen 
derson  that  's  coming  down  the  street  ?  "  said  Miss  Dorcas. 

"  Dear  me ! "  said  Mrs.  Betsey  in  an  anxious  nutter. 
"  Why,  there  are  tivo  of  them  —  they  are  both  taking  hold 
to  lift  out  that  bureau  —  see  there !  Now  she  's  put  her 
head  out  of  the  chamber  window  there  and  is  speaking  to 
them.  What  a  pretty  color  her  hair  is !  " 

At  this  moment  the  horse  on  the  other  side  of  the  street 
started  prematurely,  for  some  reason  best  known  to  him 
self,  and  the  bureau  came  down  with  a  thud ;  and  Jack, 
who  considered  his  opinion  as  now  called  for,  barked  fran 
tically  through  the  blinds. 

Miss  Dorcas  seized  his  muzzle  energetically  and  endea 
vored  to  hold  his  jaws  together,  but  he  still  barked  in  a 
smothered  and  convulsive  manner;  whereat  the  good  lady 
swept  him,  vi  et  armis,  from  his  perch,  and  disciplined 
him  vigorously,  forcing  him  to  retire  to  his  cushion  in  a 
distant  corner,  where  he  still  persistently  barked. 

"Oh,  poor  doggie!"  sighed  Mrs.  Betsey.  "Dorcas, 
how  can  you  ?  " 

"How  can  I?"  said  Miss  Dorcas  in  martial  tones. 
"Betsey  Ann  Benthusen,  this  dog  would  grow  up  a  perfect 
pest  of  this  neighborhood  if  I  left  him  to  you.  He  must 
learn  not  to  get  up  and  bark  through  those  blinds.  It 
isn't  so  much  matter  now  the  windows  are  shut,  but  the 
habit  is  the  thing.  Who  wants  to  have  a  dog  firing  a 
fusillade  when  your  visitors  come  up  the  front  steps  — 


4  WE  AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

barking-enough-to-split-one's-head-open,"  added  Miss  Dor 
cas  turning  upon  the  culprit,  with  a  severe  staccato  designed 
to  tell  upon  his  conscience. 

Jack  bowed  his  head  and  rolled  his  great  soft  eyes  at 
her  through  a  silvery  thicket  of  hair. 

"You  are  a  very  naughty  dog,"  she  added  impressively. 

Jack  sat  up  on  his  haunches  and  waved  his  front  paws 
in  a  deprecating  manner  to  Miss  Dorcas,  and  the  good  lady 
laughed  and  said  cheerily,  "Well,  well,  Jacky,  be  a  good 
dog  now,  and  we  '11  be  friends." 

And  Jacky  wagged  his  tail  in  the  most  demonstrative 
manner,  and  frisked  with  triumphant  assurance  of  restored 
favor.  It  was  the  usual  end  of  disciplinary  struggles  with 
him.  Miss  Dorcas  sat  down  to  a  bit  of  worsted  work  on 
which  she  had  been  busy  when  her  attention  was  first 
called  to  the  window. 

Mrs.  Betsey,  however,  with  her  nose  close  to  the  window 
blinds,  continued  to  announce  the  state  of  things  over  the 
way  in  short  jets  of  communication. 

"There!  the  gentlemen  are  both  gone  in  —  and  there! 
the  cart  has  driven  off.  Now,  they  've  shut  the  front 
door,"  etc. 

After  this  came  a  pause  of  a  few  moments,  in  which 
both  sisters  worked  in  silence. 

"I  wonder,  now,  which  of  those  two  was  the  husband," 
said  Mrs.  Betsey  at  last,  in  a  slow  reflective  tone,  as  if  she 
had  been  maturely  considering  the  subject. 

In  the  mean  time  it  had  occurred  to  Miss  Dorcas  that 
this  species  of  minute  inquisition  into  the  affairs  of  neigh 
bors  over  the  way  was  rather  a  compromising  of  her  dig 
nity,  and  she  broke  out  suddenly  from  a  high  moral  perch 
on  her  unconscious  sister. 

"Betsey,"  she  said,  with  severe  gravity,  "I  really  sup 
pose  it 's  no  concern  of  ours  what  goes  on  over  at  the  other 
house.  Poor  dear  papa  used  to  say  if  there  was  anything 


THE   OTHER   SIDE   OF  THE   STREET  5 

that  was  unworthy  a  true  lady  it  was  a  disposition  to  gos 
sip.  Our  neighbors'  affairs  are  nothing  to  us.  I  think  it 
is  Mrs.  Chapone  who  says,  '  A  well-regulated  mind  will 
repress  curiosity. '  Perhaps,  Betsey,  it  would  be  well  to 
go  on  with  our  daily  reading." 

Mrs.  Betsey,  as  a  younger  sister,  had  been  accustomed 
to  these  sudden  pullings-up  of  the  moral  check-rein  from 
Miss  Dorcas,  and  received  them  as  meekly  as  a  well-bitted 
pony.  She  rose  immediately,  and,  laying  down  her  knit 
ting  work,  turned  to  the  book-case.  It  appears  that  the 
good  souls  were  diversifying  their  leisure  hours  by  reading 
for  the  fifth  or  sixth  time  that  enlivening  poem,  Young's 
"Night  Thoughts."  So,  taking  down  a  volume  from  the 
book-shelves  and  opening  to  a  mark,  Mrs.  Betsey  com 
menced  a  sonorous  expostulation  to  Alonzo  on  the  value  of 
time.  The  good  lady's  manner  of  rendering  poetry  was  in 
a  high-pitched  falsetto,  with  inflections  of  a  marvelous 
nature,  rising  in  the  earnest  parts  almost  to  a  howl.  In 
her  youth  she  had  been  held  to  possess  a  talent  for  elocu 
tion,  and  had  been  much  commended  by  the  amateurs  of 
her  times  as  a  reader  of  almost  professional  merit.  The 
decay  of  her  vocal  organs  had  been  so  gradual  and  gentle 
that  neither  sister  had  perceived  the  change  of  quality  in 
her  voice,  or  the  nervous  tricks  of  manner  which  had  grown 
upon  her,  till  her  rendering  of  poetry  resembled  a  preter 
natural  hoot.  Miss  Dorcas  beat  time  with  her  needle  and 
listened  complacently  to  the  mournful  adjurations,  while 
Jack,  crouching  himself  with  his  nose  on  his  forepaws, 
winked  very  hard  and  surveyed  Mrs.  Betsey  with  an  uneasy 
excitement,  giving  from  time  to  time  low  growls  as  her 
voice  rose  in  emphatic  places;  and  finally,  as  if  even  a 
dog's  patience  could  stand  it  no  longer,  he  chorused  a  start 
ling  point  with  a  sharp  yelp ! 

"There!"  said  Mrs.  Betsey,  throwing  down  the  book. 
"  What  is  the  reason  Jack  never  likes  me  to  read  poetry  1  " 


6  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

Jack  sprang  forward  as  the  book  was  thrown  down,  and 
running  to  Mrs.  Betsey,  jumped  into  her  lap  and  endea 
vored  to  kiss  her  in  a  most  tumultuous  and  excited  manner, 
as  an  expression  of  his  immense  relief. 

"There!  there!  Jacky,  good  fellow  —  down,  down! 
Why,  how  odd  it  is!  I  can't  think  what  excites  him  so 
in  my  reading,"  said  Mrs.  Betsey.  "It  must  be  something 
that  he  notices  in  my  intonations,"  she  added  innocently. 

The  two  sisters  we  have  been  looking  in  upon  are  worthy 
of  a  word  of  introduction.  There  are  in  every  growing  city 
old  houses  that  stand  as  breakwaters  in  the  tide  of  modern 
improvement,  and  may  be  held  as  fortresses  in  which  the 
past  entrenches  itself  against  the  never-ceasing  encroach 
ments  of  the  present.  The  house  in  which  the  conversa 
tion  just  recorded  has  taken  place  was  one  of  these.  It 
was  a  fragment  of  ancient  primitive  New  York  known  as 
the  old  Vanderheyden  house,  only  waiting  the  death  of  old 
Miss  Dorcas  Vanderheyden  and  her  sister,  Mrs.  Betsey 
Benthusen,  to  be  pulled  down  and  made  into  city  lots  and 
squares. 

Time  was  when  the  Vanderheyden  house  was  the  coun 
try  seat  of  old  Jacob  Vanderheyden,  a  thriving  Dutch 
merchant,  who  lived  there  with  somewhat  foreign  ideas  of 
style  and  stateliness.  Parks  and  gardens  and  waving  trees 
had  encircled  it,  but  the  city  limits  had  gained  upon  it 
through  three  generations;  squares  and  streets  had  been 
opened  through  its  grounds,  till  now  the  house  itself  and 
the  garden-patch  in  the  rear  was  all  that  remained  of  the 
ancient  domain.  Innumerable  schemes  of  land  speculators 
had  attacked  the  old  place;  offers  had  been  insidiously 
made  to  the  proprietors  which  would  have  put  them  in 
possession  of  dazzling  wealth,  but  they  gallantly  maintained 
their  position.  It  is  true  their  income  in  ready  money  was 
but  scanty,  and  their  taxes  had,  year  by  year,  grown 
higher  as  the  value  of  the  land  increased.  Modern  New 


THE    OTHER    SIDE   OF   THE   STREET  7 

York,  so  to  speak,  foamed  and  chafed  like  a  great  red 
dragon  before  the  old  house,  waiting  to  make  a  mouthful 
of  it,  but  the  ancient  princesses  within  bravely  held  their 
own  and  refused  to  parley  or  capitulate. 

Their  life  was  wholly  in  the  past,  with  a  generation 
whose  bones  had  long  rested  under  respectable  tomb 
stones.  Their  grandfather  on  their  mother's  side  had  been 
a  signer  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence;  their  grand 
father  on  the  paternal  side  was  a  Dutch  merchant  of  some 
standing  in  early  New  York,  a  friend  and  correspondent 
of  Alexander  Hamilton's  and  a  co-worker  with  him  in 
those  financial  schemes  by  which  the  treasury  of  the  young 
republic  of  America  was  first  placed  on  a  solid  basis.  Old 
Jacob  did  good  service  in  negotiating  loans  in  Holland,  and 
did  not  omit  to  avail  himself  of  the  golden  opportunities 
which  the  handling  of  a  nation's  wealth  presents.  He 
grew  rich  and  great  in  the  land,  and  was  implicitly  revered 
in  his  own  family  as  being  one  of  the  nurses  and  founders 
of  the  American  Republic.  In  the  ancient  Dutch  secretary 
which  stood  in  the  corner  of  the  sitting-room  where  our 
old  ladies  spent  their  time  were  many  letters  from  noted 
names  of  a  century  or  so  back  —  papers  yellow  with  age, 
but  whose  contents  were  all  alive  with  the  foam  and  fresh 
turbulence  of  what  was  then  the  existing  life  of  the  period. 

Mrs.  Betsey  Benthusen  was  a  younger  sister  and  a 
widow.  She  had  been  a  beauty  in  her  girlhood,  and  so 
much  younger  than  her  sister  that  Miss  Dorcas  felt  all  the 
pride  and  interest  of  a  mother  in  her  success,  in  her  lovers, 
in  her  marriage ;  and  when  that  marriage  proved  a  miser 
able  failure,  uniting  her  to  a  man  who  wasted  her  fortune 
and  neglected  her  person,  and  broke  her  heart,  Miss  Dorcas 
received  her  back  to  her  strong  arms  and  made  a  home  and 
a  refuge  where  the  poor  woman  could  gather  up  and  piece 
together,  in  some  broken  fashion,  the  remains  of  her  life 
as  one  mends  a  broken  Sevres  china  teacup. 


8  WE   AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

Miss  Dorcas  was  by  nature  of  a  fiery,  energetic  tempera 
ment,  intense  and  original  —  precisely  the  one  to  be  a  con- 
temner  of  customs  and  proprieties;  but  a  very  severe  and 
rigid  education  had  imposed  on  her  every  yoke  of  the  most 
ancient  and  straitest-laced  decorum.  She  had  been  nur 
tured  only  in  such  savory  treatises  as  Dr.  Gregory's  "Leg 
acy  to  his  Daughters,'7  Mrs.  Chapone's  "Letters,"  Miss 
Hannah  More's  "Coelebs  in  Search  of  a  Wife,"  "Watts  on 
the  Mind,"  and  other  good  books  by  which  our  great 
grandmothers  had  their  lives  all  laid  out  for  them  in  exact 
squares  and  parallelograms,  and  were  taught  exactly  what 
to  think  and  do  in  all  possible  emergencies. 

But,  as  often  happens,  the  original  nature  of  Miss  Dor 
cas  was  apt  to  break  out  here  and  there,  all  the  more  viva 
ciously  for  repression,  in  a  sort  of  natural  geyser:  and  so, 
though  rigidly  proper  in  the  main,  she  was  apt  to  fall  into 
delightful  spasms  of  naturalness.  Notwithstanding  all 
the  remarks  of  Mrs.  Chapone  and  Dr.  Watts  about  gossip, 
she  still  had  a  hearty  and  innocent  interest  in  the  pretty 
young  housekeeper  that  was  building  a  nest  opposite  to 
her,  and  a  little  quite  harmless  curiosity  in  what  was  going 
on  over  the  way. 

A  great  deal  of  good  sermonizing,  by  the  bye,  is  expended 
on  gossip,  which  is  denounced  as  one  of  the  seven  deadly 
sins  of  society;  but,  after  all,  gossip  has  its  better  side: 
if  not  a  Christian  grace,  it  certainly  is  one  of  those  weeds 
which  show  a  good  warm  soil.  The  kindly  heart,  that 
really  cares  for  everything  human  it  meets,  inclines  toward 
gossip,  in  a  good  way.  Just  as  a  morning-glory  throws 
out  tendrils,  and  climbs  up  and  peeps  cheerily  into  your 
window,  so  a  kindly  gossip  can't  help  watching  the  opening 
and  shutting  of  your  blinds  and  the  curling  smoke  from 
your  chimney.  And  so,  too,  after  all  the  high  morality  of 
Miss  Dorcas,  the  energetic  turning  of  her  sister  to  the 
paths  of  propriety,  and  the  passage  from  Young's  "Night 


THE   OTHER   SIDE   OF   THE   STREET  9 

Thoughts,"  with  its  ponderous  solemnity,  she  was  at  heart 
kindly  musing  upon  the  possible  fortunes  of  the  pretty 
young  creature  across  the  street,  and  was  as  fresh  and 
ready  to  take  up  the  next  bit  of  information  about  her 
house  as  a  brisk  hen  is  to  discuss  the  latest  bit  of  crumb 
thrown  from  a  window. 

Miss  Dorcas  had  been  brought  up  by  her  father  in  dili 
gent  study  of  the  old  approved  English  classics.  The 
book-case  of  the  sitting-room  presented  in  gilded  order  old 
editions  of  the  "Kambler,"  the  "Tattler,"  and  the  "Spec 
tator,"  the  poems  of  Pope,  and  Dry  den,  and  Milton,  and 
Shakespeare,  and  Miss  Dorcas  and  her  sister  were  well 
versed  in  them  all.  And  in  view  of  the  whole  of  our 
modern  literature,  we  must  say  that  their  studies  might 
have  been  much  worse  directed. 

Their  father  had  unfortunately  been  born  too  early  to 
enjoy  Walter  Scott.  There  is  an  age  when  a  man  cannot 
receive  a  new  author  or  a  new  idea.  Like  a  lilac  bush 
which  has  made  its  terminal  buds,  he  has  grown  all  he  can 
in  this  life,  and  there  is  no  use  in  trying  to  force  him  into 
a  new  growth.  Jacob  Vanderheyden  died  considering 
Scott's  novels  as  the  flimsy  trash  of  the  modern  school, 
while  his  daughters  hid  them  under  their  pillows,  and 
found  them  all  the  more  delightful  from  the  vague  sensa 
tion  of  sinfulness  which  was  connected  with  their  admira 
tion.  Walter  Scott  was  their  most  modern  landmark; 
youth  and  bloom  and  heedlessness  and  impropriety  were 
all  delightfully  mixed  up  with  their  reminiscences  of  him 
—  and  now,  here  they  were  still  living  in  an  age  which 
has  shelved  Walter  Scott  among  the  classics,  and  reads 
Dickens  and  Thackeray  and  Anthony  Trollope. 

Miss  Dorcas  had  been  stranded,  now  and  then,  on  one 
of  these  "trashy  moderns"  —  had  sat  up  all  night  surrepti 
tiously  reading  "Nicholas  Kickleby,"  and  had  hidden  the 
book  from  Mrs.  Betsey  lest  her  young  mind  should  be  car- 


10  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

ried  away,  until  she  discovered,  by  an  accidental  remark, 
that  Mrs.  Betsey  had  committed  the  same  delightful  impro 
priety  while  off  on  a  visit  to  a  distant  relative.  When 
the  discovery  became  mutual,  from  time  to  time  other 
works  of  the  same  author  crept  into  the  house  in  cheap 
pamphlet  editions,  and  the  perusal  of  them  was  apologized 
for  by  Miss  Dorcas  to  Mrs.  Betsey,  as  being  well  enough, 
now  and  then,  to  see  what  people  were  reading  in  these 
trashy  times.  Ah,  what  is  fame!  Are  not  Dickens  and 
Thackeray  and  Trollope  on  their  inevitable  way  to  the  same 
dusty  high  shelf  in  the  library,  where  they  will  be  praised 
and  not  read  by  the  forthcoming  jeunesse  of  the  future  ? 

If  the  minds  of  the  ancient  sisters  were  a  museum  of 
bygone  ideas,  and  literature,  and  tastes,  the  old  Vander- 
heyden  house  was  no  less  a  museum  of  bygone  furniture. 
The  very  smell  of  the  house  was  ghostly  with  past  sugges 
tion.  Every  article  of  household  gear  in  it  had  grown 
old  together  with  all  the  rest,  standing  always  in  the  same 
spot,  subjected  to  the  same  minute  daily  dusting  and  the 
same  semi-annual  house-cleaning. 

Carlyle  has  a  dissertation  on  the  "talent  for  annihilating 
rubbish."  This  was  a  talent  that  the  respectable  Miss 
Dorcas  had  none  of.  Carlyle  thinks  it  a  fine  thing  to 
have;  but  we  think  the  lack  of  it  may  come  from  very 
respectable  qualities.  In  Miss  Dorcas  it  came  from  a  vivid 
imagination  of  the  possible  future  uses  to  which  every 
decayed  or  broken  household  article  might  be  put.  The 
pitcher  without  nose  or  handle  was  fine  china,  and  might 
yet  be  exactly  the  thing  for  something,  and  so  it  went  care 
fully  on  some  high  perch  of  preservation,  dismembered; 
the  half  of  a  broken  pair  of  snuffers  certainly  looked  too 
good  to  throw  away  —  possibly  it  might  be  the  exact  thing 
needed  to  perfect  some  invention.  Miss  Dorcas  vaguely 
remembered  legends  of  inventors  who  had  laid  hold  on  such 
chance  adaptations  at  the  very  critical  point  of  their  contriv- 


THE   OTHER   SIDE    OF   THE    STREET  11 

ances,  and  so  the  half  snuffers  waited  years  for  their 
opportunity.  The  upper  shelves  of  the  closets  in  the  Van- 
derheyden  house  were  a  perfect  crowded  mustering  ground 
for  the  incurables  and  incapables  of  household  belongings. 
One  might  fancy  them  a  Hotel  des  Invalides  of  things 
wounded  and  fractured  in  the  general  battle  of  life.  There 
were  blades  of  knives  without  handles,  and  handles  with 
out  blades;  there  were  ancient  teapots  that  leaked  —  but 
might  be  mended,  and  doubtless  would  be  of  some  good 
in  a  future  day;  there  were  cracked  plates  and  teacups; 
there  were  china  dish-covers  without  dishes  to  match;  a 
coffee-mill  that  wouldn't  grind,  and  shears  that  wouldn't 
cut,  and  snuffers  that  wouldn't  snuff  —  in  short,  every 
species  of  decayed  utility. 

Miss  Dorcas  had  in  the  days  of  her  youth  been  blest 
with  a  brother  of  an  active,  inventive  turn  of  mind;  the 
secret  crypts  and  recesses  of  the  closets  bore  marks  of  his 
unfinished  projections.  There  were  all  the  wheels  and 
weights  and  other  internal  confusions  of  a  clock,  which  he 
had  pulled  to  pieces  with  a  view  of  introducing  an  improve 
ment  into  the  machinery,  which  never  was  introduced;  but 
the  wheels  and  weights  were  treasured  up  with  pious  care, 
waiting  for  somebody  to  put  them  together  again.  All  this 
array  of  litter  was  fated  to  come  down  from  its  secret  re 
cesses,  its  deep,  dark  closets,  its  high  shelves  and  perches, 
on  two  solemn  days  of  the  year  devoted  to  house-cleaning, 
when  Miss  Dorcas,  like  a  good  general,  looked  them  over 
and  reviewed  them,  expatiated  on  their  probable  capabili 
ties,  and  resisted  gallantly  any  suggestions  of  Black  Dinah, 
the  cook  and  maid  of  all  work,  or  Mrs.  Betsey,  that  some 
order  ought  to  be  taken  to  rid  the  house  of  them. 

"Dear  me,  Dorcas,"  Mrs.  Betsey  would  say,  "what  is 
the  use  of  keeping  such  a  clutter  and  litter  of  things  that 
nothing  can  be  done  with  and  that  never  can  be  used  ? " 

" Betsey  Ann  Benthusen,"   would  be  the  reply,    "you 


12  WE   AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

always  were  a  careless  little  thing.  You  never  understood 
any  more  about  housekeeping  than  a  canary  -  bird  —  not 
a  bit."  In  Miss  Dorcas's  view,  Mrs.  Betsey,  with  her 
snow-white  curls  and  her  caps,  was  still  a  frivolous  young 
creature,  not  fit  to  be  trusted  with  a  serious  opinion  on  the 
nicer  points  of  household  management.  "Now,  who 
knows,  Betsey,  but  some  time  we  may  meet  some  poor 
worthy  young  man  who  may  be  struggling  along  as  an  in 
ventor  and  may  like  to  have  these  wheels  and  weights! 
I  'm  sure  brother  Dick  said  they  were  wonderfully  well 
made." 

"Well,  but,  Dorcas,  all  those  cracked  cups  and  broken 
pitchers ;  I  do  think  they  are  dreadful ! " 

"Now,  Betsey,  hush  up!  I  've  heard  of  a  kind  of  new 
cement  that  they  are  manufacturing  in  London,  that  makes 
old  china  better  than  new;  and  when  they  get  it  over  here 
I  'm  going  to  mend  these  all  up.  You  wouldn't  have  me 
throw  away  family  china,  would  you  ? " 

The  word  "family"  china  was  a  settler,  for  both  Mrs. 
Betsey  and  Miss  Dorcas  and  old  Dinah  were  united  in  one 
fundamental  article  of  faith:  that  the  "family"  was  a 
solemn,  venerable,  and  awe-inspiring  reality.  What,  or 
why,  or  how  it  was  no  mortal  could  say. 

Old  Jacob  Vanderheyden,  the  grandfather,  had  been  in 
his  day  busy  among  famous  and  influential  men,  and  had 
even  been  to  Europe  as  a  sort  of  attache  to  the  first  Ameri 
can  diplomatic  corps.  He  had  been  also  a  thriving  mer 
chant,  and  got  to  himself  houses  and  lands,  and  gold  and 
silver.  Jacob  Vanderheyden,  the  father,  had  inherited 
substance  and  kept  up  the  good  name  of  the  family,  and 
increased  and  strengthened  its  connections.  But  his  son 
and  heir,  Dick  Vanderheyden,  Miss  Dorcas's  elder  brother, 
had  seemed  to  have  no  gifts  but  those  of  dispersing;  and 
had  muddled  away  the  family  fortune  in  all  sorts  of  specu 
lations  and  adventures  as  fast  as  his  father  and  grandfather 


THE   OTHER   SIDE   OF   THE   STREET  13 

had  made  it.  The  sisters  had  been  left  with  an  income 
much  abridged  by  the  imprudence  of  the  brother  and  the 
spendthrift  dissipation  of  Mrs.  Betsey's  husband;  they 
were  forsaken  by  the  retreating  waves  of  rank  and  fashion; 
their  house,  instead  of  being  a  centre  of  good  society,  was 
encompassed  by  those  ordinary  buildings  devoted  to  pur 
poses  of  trade  whose  presence  is  deemed  incompatible  with 
genteel  residence.  And  yet,  through  it  all,  their  confidence 
in  the  rank  and  position  of  their  family  continued  una 
bated.  The  old  house,  with  every  bit  of  old  queer  furni 
ture  in  it,  the  old  window  curtains,  the  old  teacups  and 
saucers,  the  old  bedspreads  and  towels,  all  had  a  sacredness 
such  as  pertained  to  no  modern  things.  Like  the  daughter 
of  Zion  in  sacred  song,  Miss  Dorcas  "took  pleasure  in  their 
dust  and  favored  the  stones  thereof. "  The  old  blue  willow- 
patterned  china,  with  mandarins  standing  in  impossible 
places,  and  bridges  and  pagodas  growing  up,  as  the  world 
was  made,  out  of  nothing,  was  to  Miss  Dorcas  consecrated 
porcelain  —  even  its  broken  fragments  were  impregnated 
with  the  sacred  flavor  of  ancient  gentility. 

Miss  Dorcas's  own  private  and  personal  closets,  drawers, 
and  baskets  were  squirrel's  nests  of  all  sorts  of  memorials 
of  the  past.  There  were  pieces  of  every  gown  she  had  ever 
worn,  of  all  her  sister's  gowns,  and  of  the  mortal  habili 
ments  of  many  and  many  a  one  beside  who  had  long  passed 
beyond  the  need  of  earthly  garments.  Bits  of  wedding 
robes  of  brides  who  had  long  been  turned  to  dust;  frag 
ments  of  tarnished  gold  lace  from  old  court  dresses;  faded, 
crumpled,  artificial  flowers,  once  worn  on  the  head  of 
beauty;  gauzes  and  tissues,  old  and  wrinkled,  that  had 
once  set  off  the  triumphs  of  the  gay  —  all  mingled  in  her 
crypts  and  drawers  and  trunks,  and  each  had  its  story. 
Each,  held  in  her  withered  hand,  brought  back  to  memory 
the  thread  of  some  romance  warm  with  the  color  and  flavor 
of  a  life  long  passed  away. 


14  WE   AND   OUK   NEIGHBORS 

Then  there  were  collections,  saving  and  medicinal;  for 
Miss  Dorcas  had  in  great  force  that  divine  instinct  of 
womanhood  that  makes  her  perceptive  of  the  healing  power 
inherent  in  all  things.  Never  an  orange  or  an  apple  was 
pared  on  her  premises  when  the  peeling  was  not  carefully 
garnered  —  dried  on  newspaper,  and  neatly  stored  away  in 
paper  bags  for  sick-room  uses.  There  were  closets  smell 
ing  of  elderblow,  catnip,  feverfew,  and  dried  rose  leaves, 
which  grew  in  a  bit  of  old  garden  soil  back  of  the  house; 
a  spot  sorely  retrenched  and  cut  down  from  the  ample  pro 
portions  it  used  to  have,  as  little  by  little  had  been  sold 
off,  but  still  retaining  a  few  growing  things,  in  which  Miss 
Dorcas  delighted.  The  lilacs  that  once  were  bushes  there 
had  grown  gaunt  and  high,  and  looked  in  at  the  chamber 
windows  with  an  antique  and  grandfatherly  air,  quite  of 
a  piece  with  everything  else  about  the  old  Vanderheyden 
house. 

The  ancient  sisters  had  few  outlets  into  the  society  of 
modern  New  York.  Now  and  then,  a  stray  visit  came 
from  some  elderly  person  who  still  remembered  the  Vander- 
heydens,  and  perhaps  about  once  a  year  they  went  to  the 
expense  of  a  carriage  to  return  the  call,  and  rolled  up  into 
the  new  part  of  the  town  like  shadows  of  the  past.  But 
generally  their  path  of  life  led  within  the  narrow  limits  of 
the  house.  Old  Dinah,  the  sole  black  servant  remaining, 
was  the  last  remnant  of  a  former  retinue  of  negro  servants 
held  by  old  Jacob  when  New  York  was  a  slave  State 
and  a  tribe  of  black  retainers  was  one  of  the  ostentations 
of  wealth.  All  were  gone  now,  and  only  Dinah  remained, 
devoted  to  the  relics  of  the  old  family,  clinging  with  a  cat 
like  attachment  to  the  old  place. 

She  was  like  many  of  her  race,  a  jolly-hearted,  pig 
headed,  giggling,  faithful  old  creature,  who  said  "Yes'm" 
to  Miss  Dorcas  and  took  her  own  way  about  most  matters; 
and  Miss  Dorcas,  satisfied  that  her  way  was  not  on  the 


THE   OTHER   SIDE   OF  THE   STREET  15 

whole  a  bad  one  in  the  ultimate  results,  winked  at  her  free 
handling  of  orders,  and  consented  to  accept  her,  as  we  do 
Nature,  for  what  could  be  got  out  of  her. 

"They  are  going  to  have  mince-pie  and  broiled  chicken 
for  dinner  over  there,"  said  Mrs.  Betsey,  when  the  two 
ladies  were  seated  at  their  own  dinner-table  that  day. 

"How  in  the  world  did  you  know  that?"  asked  Miss 
Dorcas. 

"Well,  Dinah  met  their  girl  in  at  the  provision  store 
and  struck  up  an  acquaintance,  and  went  in  to  help  her 
put  up  a  bedstead,  and  so  she  stopped  a  while  in  the 
kitchen.  The  tall  gentleman  with  black  hair  is  the  hus 
band  —  I  thought  all  the  while  he  was, "  said  Mrs.  Betsey. 
"The  other  one  is  a  Mr.  Fellows,  a  great  friend  of  theirs, 
Mary  says  "  — 

"  Mary !  —  who  is  Mary  1 "  said  Miss  Dorcas. 

"Why,  Mary  McArthur,  their  girl  —  they  only  keep 
one,  but  she  has  a  little  daughter  about  eight  years  old  to 
help.  I  wish  we  had  a  little  girl,  or  something  that  one 
might  train  for  a  waiter  to  answer  door-bells  and  do  little 
things." 

"Our  door-bells  don't  call  for  much  attention,  and  a 
little  girl  is  nothing  but  a  plague, "  interposed  Miss  Dorcas. 

"Dinah  has  quite  fallen  in  love  with  Mrs.  Henderson," 
said  Mrs.  Betsey;  "she  says  that  she  is  the  handsomest, 
pleasantest-spoken  lady  she  's  seen  for  a  great  while." 

"We  '11  call  upon  her  when  they  get  well  settled,"  said 
Miss  Dorcas  definitively. 

Miss  Dorcas  settled  this  with  the  air  of  a  princess.  She 
felt  that  such  a  meritorious  little  person  as  the  one  over 
the  way  ought  to  be  encouraged  by  people  of  good  old 
families. 

Our  readers  will  observe  that  Miss  Dorcas  listened  with 
out  remonstrance  and  with  some  appearance  of  interest  to 
the  items  about  mince-pie  and  broiled  chicken;  but  high 


16  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

moral  propriety,  as  we  all  know,  is  a  very  cold,  windy 
height,  and  if  a  person  is  planted  on  it  once  or  twice  a 
day,  it  is  as  much  as  ought  to  be  demanded  of  human 
weakness.  For  the  rest  of  the  time  one  should  be  allowed, 
like  Miss  Dorcas,  to  repose  upon  one's  laurels.  And,  after 
all,  it  is  interesting,  when  life  is  moving  in  a  very  stagnant 
current,  even  to  know  what  your  neighbor  has  for  dinner! 


CHAPTER   II 

HOW    WE    BEGIX    LIFE 

[Letter  from  Eva  Henderson  to  Isabel  Convers.] 
MY  DEAR  BELLE,  —  Well,  here  we  are,  Harry  and  I, 
all  settled  down  to  housekeeping  quite  like  old  folks.  All 
is  about  done  but  the  last  things,  —  those  little  touches, 
and  improvements,  and  alterations  that  go  off  into  airy 
perspective.  I  believe  it  was  Carlyle  that  talked  about  an 
"  infinite  shoe-black  "  whom  all  the  world  could  not  quite 
satisfy  so  but  that  there  would  always  be  a  next  thing  in 
the  distance.  Well,  perhaps  it 's  going  to  be  so  in  house 
keeping,  and  I  shall  turn  out  an  infinite  housekeeper;  for 
I  find  this  little,  low-studded,  unfashionable  home  of  ours, 
far  off  in  a  tabooed  street,  has  kept  all  my  energies  brisk 
and  busy  for  a  month  past,  and  still  there  are  more  worlds 
to  conquer.  Visions  of  certain  brackets  and  lambrequins 
that  are  to  adorn  my  spare  chamber  visit  my  pillow  nightly 
while  Harry  is  placidly  sleeping  the  sleep  of  the  just.  I 
have  been  unable  to  attain  to  them  because  I  have  been  so 
busy  with  my  parlor  ivies  and  my  Ward's  case  of  ferns, 
and  some  perfectly  seraphic  hanging  baskets,  gorgeous  with 
flowering  nasturtiums  that  are  now  blooming  in  my  win 
dows.  There  is  a  dear  little  Quaker  dove  of  a  woman 
living  in  the  next  house  to  ours  who  is  a  perfect  witch  at 
gardening,  —  a  good  kind  of  witch,  you  understand,  one 
who  could  make  a  broomstick  bud  and  blossom  if  she  un 
dertook  it,  —  and  she  has  been  my  teacher  and  exemplar 
in  these  matters.  Her  parlor  is  a  perfect  bower,  a  drab 
dove's  nest  wreathed  round  with  vines  and  all  a- bloom 


18  WE  AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

with  geraniums;  and  mine  is  coming  on  to  look  just  like 
it.      So  you  see  all  this  has  kept  me  ever  so  busy. 

Then  there  are  the  family  accounts  to  keep.  You  may 
think  that  isn't  much  for  our  little  concern,  but  you  would 
be  amazed  to  find  how  much  there  is  in  it.  You  see,  I 
have  all  my  life  concerned  myself  only  with  figures  of 
speech,  and  never  gave  a  thought  about  figures  of  arithme 
tic,  or  troubled  my  head  as  to  where  money  came  from  or 
went  to;  and  when  I  married  Harry  I  had  a  general  idea 
that  we  were  going  to  live  with  delightful  economy.  But 
it  is  astonishing  how  much  all  our  simplicity  costs,  after 
all.  My  account-book  is  giving  me  a  world  of  new  ideas, 
and  some  pretty  serious  ones,  too. 

Harry,  you  see,  leaves  everything  to  me.  He  has  to  be 
off  to  his  office  by  seven  o'clock  every  morning,  and  I  am 
head  marshal  of  the  commissariat  department,  —  committee 
of  one  on  supplies,  and  all  that,  —  and  it  takes  up  a  good 
deal  of  my  time. 

You  would  laugh,  Belle,  to  see  me  with  my  matronly 
airs  and  graces  going  my  daily  walk  to  the  provision  store 
at  the  corner,  which  is  kept  by  a  tall,  black-browed  lugu 
brious  man,  with  rough  hair  and  a  stiff  stubby  beard,  who 
surveys  me  with  a  severe  gravity  over  the  counter,  as  if  he 
wasn't  sure  that  my  designs  were  quite  honest. 

"Mr.  Quackenboss, "  I  say,  with  my  sweetest  smile, 
"  have  you  any  nice  butter  1 " 

He  looks  out  of  the  window,  drums  on  the  counter,  and 
answers  "Yes"  in  a  tone  of  great  reserve. 

"I  should  like  to  look  at  some,"  I  say,  undiscouraged. 

"It's  down  cellar,"  he  replies,  gloomily  chewing  a  bit 
of  chip  and  casting  sinister  glances  at  me. 

"Well,"  I  say  cheerfully,  "shall  I  go  down  there  and 
look  at  it  1  " 

"  How  much  do  you  want  1  "  he  asks  suspiciously. 

"That  depends  on  how  well  I  like  it,"  say  I. 


HOW   WE   BEGIN   LIFE  19 

"I  s'pose  I  could  get  up  a  cask,"  he  says  in  a  ruminat 
ing  tone;  and  now  he  calls  his  partner,  a  cheerful,  fat, 
roly-poly  little  cockney  Englishman,  who  flings  his  A's 
round  in  the  most  generous  and  reckless  style.  His  alert 
manner  seems  to  say  that  he  would  get  up  forty  casks  a 
minute  and  throw  them  all  at  my  feet,  if  it  would  give  me 
any  pleasure. 

So  the  butter-cask  is  got  up  and  opened,  and  my  severe 
friend  stands  looking  down  on  it  and  me  as  if  he  would 
say,  "This  also  is  vanity." 

"I  should  like  to  taste  it,"  I  say,  "if  I  had  something 
to  try  it  with." 

He  scoops  up  a  portion  on  his  dirty  thumb-nail  and  seems 
to  hold  it  reflectively,  as  if  a  doubt  was  arising  in  his  mind 
of  the  propriety  of  this  mode  of  offering  it  to  me. 

And  now  my  cockney  friend  interposes  with  a  clean 
knife.  I  taste  the  butter  and  find  it  excellent,  and  give 
a  generous  order  which  delights  his  honest  soul;  and  as  he 
weighs  it  out  he  throws  in,  gratis,  the  information  that  his 
little  woman  has  tried  it,  and  he  was  sure  I  would  like  it, 
for  she  is  the  tidiest  little  woman  and  the  best  judge  of 
butter;  that  they  came  from  Yorkshire,  where  the  pastures 
round  were  so  sweet  with  a-many  violets  and  cowslips  — 
in  fact,  my  little  cockney  friend  strays  off  into  a  kind  of 
pastoral  that  makes  the  little  grocery  store  quite  poetic. 

I  call  my  two  grocers  familiarly  Tragedy  and  Comedy, 
and  make  Harry  a  good  deal  of  fun  by  recounting  my  ad 
ventures  with  them.  I  have  many  speculations  about 
Tragedy.  He  is  a  married  man,  as  I  learn,  and  I  can't 
help  wondering  what  Mrs.  Quackenboss  thinks  of  him. 
Does  he  ever  shave  —  or  does  she  kiss  him  in  the  rough  — 
or  has  she  given  up  kissing  him  at  all  1  How  did  he  act 
when  he  was  in  love  1  —  if  ever  he  was  in  love  —  and  what 
did  he  say  to  the  lady  to  induce  her  to  marry  him  1  How 
did  he  look  when  he  did  it?  It  really  makes  me  shud- 


20  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

der  to  think  of  such  a  mournful  ghoul  coming  back  to 
the  domestic  circle  at  night.  I  should  think  the  little 
"Quacks"  would  all  run  and  hide.  But  a  truce  to  scan 
dalizing  my  neighbor  —  he  may  be  better  than  I  am,  after 
all! 

I  ought  to  tell  you  that  some  of  my  essays  in  provision 
ing  my  garrison  might  justly  excite  his  contempt  —  they 
have  been  rather  appalling  to  my  good  Mary  McArthur. 
You  know  I  had  been  used  to  seeing  about  a  ten-pound 
sirloin  of  beef  on  papa's  table,  and  the  first  day  I  went  into 
the  shop  I  assumed  an  air  of  easy  wisdom  as  if  I  had  been 
a  housekeeper  all  my  life,  and  ordered  just  such  a  cut  as  I 
had  seen  mamma  get,  with  all  sorts  of  vegetables  to  match, 
and  walked  home  with  composed  dignity.  When  Mary 
saw  it  she  threw  up  her  hands  and  gave  an  exclamation  of 
horror.  "  Miss  Eva !  "  she  said,  "  when  will  we  get  all 
this  eaten  up  1  "  And  verily  that  beef  pursued  us  through 
the  week  most  like  a  ghost.  We  had  it  hot,  and  we  had 
it  cold;  we  had  it  stewed  and  hashed,  and  made  soup  of 
it;  we  sliced  it  and  we  minced  it,  and  I  ate  a  great  deal 
more  than  was  good  for  me  on  purpose  to  "save  it."  To 
wards  the  close  of  the  week  Harry  civilly  suggested  (he 
never  finds  fault  with  anything  I  do,  but  he  merely  sug 
gested)  whether  it  wouldn't  be  better  to  have  a  little  vari 
ety  in  our  table  arrangements;  and  then  I  came  out  with 
the  whole  story,  and  we  had  a  good  laugh  together  about 
it.  Since,  then  I  have  come  down  to  taking  lessons  of 
Mary,  and  I  say  to  her,  "How  much  of  this,  and  that,  had 
I  better  get  ? "  and  between  us  we  make  it  go  quite  nicely. 

Speaking  of  neighbors,  my  dear  blessed  Aunt  Maria, 
whom  I  suppose  you  remember,  has  almost  broken  her 
heart  about  papa's  failing  and  my  marrying  Harry  and, 
finally,  our  coming  to  live  on  an  unfashionable  street  — 
which  in  her  view  is  equal  to  falling  out  of  heaven  into 
some  very  suspicious  region  of  limbo.  She  almost  quarreled 


HOW   WE   BEGIN  LIFE  21 

* 

with  us  both  because,  having  got  married  contrary  to  her 
will,  we  would  also  insist  on  going  to  housekeeping  and  hav 
ing  a  whole  house  to  ourselves  on  a  back  street  instead  of 
having  one  little  stuffy  room  on  the  back  side  of  a  fashion 
able  boarding-house.  Well,  I  made  all  up  with  her  at  last. 
If  you  will  have  your  own  way,  and  persist  in  it,  people  have 
to  make  up  with  you.  You  thus  get  to  be  like  the  sun 
and  moon  which,  though  they  often  behave  very  inconven 
iently,  you  have  to  make  the  best  of;  and  so  Aunt  Maria 
has  concluded  to  make  the  best  of  Harry  and  me.  It  came 
about  in  this  wise:  I  went  and  sat  with  her  the  last  time 
she  had  a  sick  headache,  and  kissed  her,  and  bathed  her 
head,  and  told  her  I  wanted  to  be  a  good  girl  and  did 
really  love  her,  though  I  couldn't  always  take  her  advice 
now  I  was  a  married  woman ;  and  so  we  made  it  up. 

But  the  trouble  is  that  now  she  wants  to  show  me  how 
to  run  this  poor  little  unfashionable  boat  so  as  to  make  a 
good  show  with  the  rest  of  them,  and  I  don't  want  to 
learn.  It 's  easier  to  keep  out  of  the  regatta.  My  card 
receiver  is  full  of  most  desirable  names  of  people  who  have 
come  in  their  fashionable  carriages  and  coupes,  and  they 
have  "oh'd"  and  "ah'd"  in  my  little  parlors,  and  declared 
they  were  "quite  sweet,"  and  "so  odd,"  and  "so  different, 
you  know ; "  but,  for  all  that,  I  don't  think  I  shall  try  to 
keep  up  all  this  gay  circle  of  acquaintances.  Carriage  hire 
costs  money;  and  when  paid  for  by  the  hour,  one  asks 
whether  the  acquaintances  are  worth  it.  But  there  are 
some  real  noble-hearted  people  that  I  mean  to  keep.  The 
Van  Astrachans,  for  instance.  Mrs.  Van  Astrachan  is  a 
solid  lump  of  goodness  and  motherliness,  and  that  sweet 
Mrs.  Harry  Endicott  is  most  lovable.  You  remember 
Harry  Endicott,  I  suppose,  and  what  a  trump  card  he  was 
thought  to  be  among  the  girls,  one  time  when  you  were 
visiting  us,  and  afterwards  all  that  scandal  about  him  and 
that  pretty  little  Mrs.  John  Seymour  ?  She  is  dead  now, 


22  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

I  hear,  and  he  has  married  this  pretty  Rose  Ferguson,  a 
friend  of  hers;  and  since  his  wife  has  taken  him  in  hand 
he  has  turned  out  to  be  a  noble  fellow.  They  live  up  on 
Madison  Avenue  quite  handsomely.  They  are  among  the 
" real  folks"  Mrs.  Whitney  tells  about,  and  I  think  I  must 
keep  them.  The  Elmores  I  don't  care  much  for.  They 
are  a  frivolous,  fast  set,  and  what 's  the  use?  Sophie  and 
her  husband,  my  old  friend  Wat  Sydney,  I  keep  mainly 
because  she  won't  give  me  up.  She  is  one  of  the  clinging 
sort,  and  is  devoted  to  me.  They  have  a  perfect  palace  up 
by  the  Park  —  it  is  quite  a  show-house,  and  is,  I  under 
stand,  to  be  furnished  by  Harter.  So,  you  see,  it 's  like 
a  friendship  between  princess  and  peasant. 

Now,  I  foresee  future  conflicts  with  Aunt  Maria  in  all 
these  possibilities.  She  is  a  nice  woman,  and  bent  on 
securing  what  she  thinks  my  interest,  but  I  can't  help  see 
ing  that  she  is  somewhat 

"A  shade  that  follows  wealth  and  fame." 

The  success  of  my  card  receiver  delights  her,  and  not  to 
improve  such  opportunities  would  be,  in  her  view,  to  bury 
one's  talent  in  a  napkin.  Yet,  after  all,  I  differ.  I  can't 
help  seeing  that  intimacies  between  people  with  a  hundred 
thousand  a  year  and  people  of  our  modest  means  will  be 
full  of  perplexities. 

And  then  I  say,  Why  not  try  to  find  all  the  neighborli- 
ness  I  can  on  my  own  street?  In  a  country  village,  one 
finds  a  deal  in  one's  neighbors,  simply  because  one  must. 
They  are  there;  they  are  all  one  has,  and  human  nature  is 
always  interesting,  if  one  takes  it  right  side  out.  Next 
door  is  the  gentle  Quakeress  I  told  you  of.  She  is  nobody 
in  the  gay  world,  but  as  full  of  sweetness  and  loving-kind 
ness  as  heart  could  desire.  Then  right  across  the  way  are 
two  antiquated  old  ladies,  very  old,  very  precise,  and  very 
funny,  who  have  come  in  state  and  called  on  me;  bringing 


HOW   WE   BEGIN   LIFE  23 

with  them  the  most  lovely,  tyrannical  little  terrier,  who 
behaved  like  a  small-sized  fiend  and  shocked  them  dread 
fully.  I  spy  worlds  of  interest  in  their  company  if  once 
I  can  rub  the  stiffness  out  of  our  acquaintance,  and  then 
I  hope  to  get  the  run  of  the  delightfully  queer  old  house. 

Then  there  are  our  set  —  Jim  Fellows,  and  Bolton,  and 
my  sister  Alice,  and  the  girls  —  in  and  out  all  the  time. 
We  sha'n't  want  for  society.  So  if  Aunt  Maria  puts  me 
up  for  a  career  in  the  gay  world  I  shall  hang  heavy  on  her 
hands. 

I  haven't  much  independence  myself,  but  it  is  no  longer 
I,  it  is  We.  Eva  Van  Arsdel  alone  was  anybody's  pro 
perty;  mamma  talked  her  one  way,  her  sister  Ida  another 
way,  and  Aunt  Maria  a  third;  and  among  them  all  her  own 
little  way  was  hard  to  find.  But  now  Harry  and  I  have 
formed  a  firm  and  compact  We,  which  is  a  fortress  into 
which  we  retreat  from  all  the  world.  I  tell  them  all,  We 
don't  think  so,  and  We  don't  do  so.  Isn't  that  nice? 
When  will  you  come  and  see  us  1 

Ever  your  loving  EVA. 


CHAPTER   III 

THE    FAMILY    DICTATOR    AT    WORK 

FROM  the  foregoing  letter  our  readers  may  have  conjec 
tured  that  the  natural  self-appointed  ruler  of  the  fortunes 
of  the  Van  Arsdel  family  was  "Aunt  Maria,"  or  Mrs. 
Maria  Wouvermans.  That  is  to  say,  this  lady  had  always 
considered  such  to  be  her  mission,  and  had  acted  upon  this 
supposition  up  to  the  time  that  Mr.  Van  Arsdel' s  failure 
made  shipwreck  of  the  fortunes  of  the  family. 

Aunt  Maria  had,  so  to  speak,  reveled  in  the  fortune  and 
position  of  the  Van  Arsdels.  She  had  dictated  the  expen 
ditures  of  their  princely  income;  she  had  projected  parties 
and  entertainments;  she  had  supervised  lists  of  guests  to 
be  invited ;  she  had  ordered  dresses  and  carriages  and  equi 
pages,  and  hired  and  dismissed  servants  at  her  sovereign 
will  and  pleasure.  Nominally,  to  be  sure,  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel 
attended  to  all  these  matters;  but  really  Aunt  Maria  was 
the  power  behind  the  throne.  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel  was  a 
pretty,  graceful,  self-indulgent  woman,  who  loved  ease  and 
hated  trouble  —  a  natural  climbing  plant  who  took  kindly 
to  any  bean-pole  in  her  neighborhood,  and  Aunt  Maria  was 
her  bean-pole.  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel' s  wealth,  her  station,  her 
eclat,  her  blooming  daughters,  all  climbed  up,  so  to  speak, 
on  Aunt  Maria,  and  hung  their  flowery  clusters  around  her, 
to  her  praise  and  glory.  Besides  all  this,  there  were  very 
solid  and  appreciable  advantages  in  the  wealth  and  station 
of  the  Van  Arsdel  family  as  related  to  the  worldly  enjoy 
ment  of  Mrs.  Maria  Wouvermans.  Being  a  widow,  con 
nected  with  an  old  rich  family,  and  with  but  a  small  for- 


THE   FAMILY   DICTATOR  AT  WORK  25 

tune  of  her  own  and  many  necessities  of  society  upon  her, 
Mrs.  Wouvermans  had  found  her  own  means  in  several 
ways  supplemented  and  carried  out  by  the  redundant  means 
of  her  sister.  Mrs.  Wouvermans  lived  in  a  moderate  house 
on  Murray  Hill,  within  comfortable  proximity  to  the  more 
showy  palaces  of  the  New  York  nobility.  She  had  old 
furniture,  old  silver,  camel' s-hair  shawls  and  jewelry  suffi 
cient  to  content  her  heart,  but  her  yearly  income  was  far 
below  her  soul's  desires,  and  necessitated  more  economy 
than  she  liked.  While  the  Van  Arsdels  were  in  full  tide 
of  success  she  felt  less  the  confinement  of  these  limits. 
What  need  for  her  to  keep  a  carriage  when  a  carriage  and 
horses  were  always  at  her  command  for  the  asking  —  and 
even  without  asking,  as  not  infrequently  came  to  be  the 
case  ?  Then,  the  Van  Arsdel  parties  and  hospitalities  re 
lieved  her  from  all  expensive  obligations  of  society.  She 
returned  the  civilities  of  her  friends  by  invitations  to  her 
sister's  parties  and  receptions;  and  it  is  an  exceedingly 
convenient  thing  to  have  all  the  glory  of  hospitality  and 
none  of  the  trouble  —  to  have  convenient  friends  to  enter 
tain  for  you  any  person  or  persons  with  whom  you  may  be 
desirous  of  keeping  up  amicable  relations.  On  the  whole, 
Mrs.  Wouvermans  was  probably  sincere  in  the  professions, 
to  which  Mr.  Van  Arsdel  used  to  listen  with  a  quiet 
amused  smile,  that  "she  really  enjoyed  Nelly's  fortune 
more  than  if  it  were  her  own." 

"Have n't  a  doubt  of  it,"  he  used  to  say,  with  a  twinkle 
of  his  eye  which  he  never  further  explained. 

Mr.  Van  Arsdel' s  failure  had  nearly  broken  Aunt  Maria's 
heart.  In  fact,  the  dear  lady  took  the  matter  more  sorely 
than  the  good  man  himself.  Mr.  Van  Arsdel  was,  in  a 
small  dry  way,  something  of  a  philosopher.  He  was  a 
silent  man  for  the  most  part,  but  had  his  own  shrewd  com 
ments  on  the  essential  worth  of  men  and  things  —  particu 
larly  of  men  in  the  feminine  gender.  He  had  never 


26  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

checked  his  pretty  wife  in  any  of  her  aspirations,  which  he 
secretly  valued  at  about  their  real  value;  he  had  never 
quarreled  with  Aunt  Maria  or  interfered  with  her  sway  in 
his  family  within  certain  limits,  because  he  had  sense 
enough  to  see  that  she  was  the  stronger  of  the  two  women, 
and  that  his  wife  could  no  more  help  yielding  to  her  influ 
ence  than  a  needle  can  help  sticking  to  a  magnet. 

But  the  race  of  fashionable  life,  its  outlays  of  health  and 
strength,  its  expenditures  for  parties,  and  for  dress  and 
equipage,  its  rivalries,  its  gossip,  its  eager  frivolities,  were 
all  matters  of  which  he  took  quiet  note,  and  which  caused 
him  often  to  ponder  the  words  of  the  wise  man  of  old, 
"What  profit  hath  a  man  of  all  his  labor  and  the  vexation 
of  his  heart,  wherein  he  hath  labored  under  the  sun  1  " 

To  Mr.  Van  ArsdePs  eye  the  only  profit  of  his  labor  and 
travail  seemed  to  be  the  making  of  his  wife  frivolous,  fill 
ing  her  with  useless  worries,  training  his  daughters  to  be 
idle  and  self-indulgent,  and  his  sons  to  be  careless  and 
reckless  of  expenditure.  So  when  at  last  the  crash  came, 
there  was  a  certain  sense  of  relief  in  finding  himself  once 
more  an  honest  man  at  the  bottom  of  the  hill,  and  he 
quietly  resolved  in  his  inmost  soul  that  he  never  would 
climb  again.  He  had  settled  up  his  affairs  with  a  manly 
exactness  that  won  the  respect  of  all  his  creditors,  and  they 
had  put  him  into  a  salaried  position  which  insured  a  com 
petence,  and  with  this  he  resolved  to  be  contented;  his 
wife  returned  to  the  economical  habits  and  virtues  of  her 
early  life;  his  sons  developed  an  amount  of  manliness  and 
energy  which  was  more  than  enough  to  compensate  for 
what  they  had  lost  in  worldly  prospects.  He  enjoyed  his 
small,  quiet  house  and  his  reduced  establishment  as  he 
never  had  done  a  more  brilliant  one,  for  he  felt  that  it  was 
founded  upon  certainties  and  involved  no  risks.  Mrs.  Van 
Arsdel  was  a  sweet-tempered,  kindly  woman,  and  his  daugh 
ters  had  each  and  every  one  met  the  reverse  in  a  way  that 


THE   FAMILY   DICTATOR   AT   WORK  27 

showed  the  sterling  quality  which  is  often  latent  under  gay 
and  apparently  thoughtless  young  womanhood. 

Aunt  Maria,  however,  settled  it  in  her  own  mind,  with 
the  decision  with  which  she  usually  settled  her  relatives' 
affairs,  that  this  state  of  things  would  be  only  temporary. 
"Of  course,"  she  said  to  her  numerous  acquaintances,  "of 
course,  Mr.  Van  .Arsdel  will  go  into  business  again  —  he  is 
only  waiting  for  a  good  opening;  he'll  be  up  again  in  a 
few  years  where  he  was  before." 

And  to  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel  she  said,  "Nelly,  you  must 
keep  him  up;  you  mustn't  hear  of  his  sinking  down  and 
doing  nothing  "  —  doing  nothing  being  his  living  content 
edly  on  a  comfortable  salary  and  going  without  the  "pomps 
and  vanities."  "Your  husband,  of  course,  will  go  into 
some  operations  to  retrieve  his  fortunes,  you  know,"  she 
said.  "  What  is  he  thinking  of  1 " 

"Well,  really,  Maria,  I  don't  see  as  he  has  the  least 
intention;  he  seems  perfectly  satisfied  to  live  as  we  do." 

"  You  must  put  him  up  to  it,  Nelly  —  depend  upon  it, 
he  's  in  danger  of  sinking  down  and  giving  up;  and  he  has 
splendid  business  talents.  He  should  go  to  operating  in 
stocks,  you  see.  Why,  men  make  fortunes  in  that  way. 
Look  at  the  Bubbleums,  and  the  Flashes,  they  were  all 
down  two  years  ago,  and  now  they  're  up  higher  than  ever, 
and  they  did  it  all  in  stocks.  Your  husband  would  find 
plenty  of  men  ready  to  go  in  with  him  and  advance  money 
to  begin  on.  No  man  is  more  trusted.  Why,  Nelly,  that 
man  might  die  a  millionaire  as  well  as  not,  and  you  ought 
to  put  him  up  to  it;  it's  a  wife's  business  to  keep  her 
husband  up." 

"I  have  tried  to,  Maria;  I  have  been  just  as  cheerful 
as  I  knew  how  to  be,  and  I  've  retrenched  and  economized 
everywhere,  as  all  the  girls  do  —  they  are  wonderful,  those 
girls!  To  see  them  take  hold  so  cheerfully  and  help  about 
household  matters,  you  never  would  dream  that  they  had 


28  WE   AND  OUR   NEIGHBORS 

not  been  brought  up  to  it;  and  they  are  so  prudent  about 
their  clothes  —  so  careful  and  saving.  And  then  the  boys 
are  getting  on  so  well.  Tom  has  gone  into  surveying  with 
a  will,  and  is  going  out  with  Smithson's  party  to  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  and  Will  has  just  got  a  good  situation  in  Bos 
ton  "  — 

"Oh  yes,  that  is  all  very  well;  but,  Nelly,  that  isn't 
what  I  mean.  You  know  that  when  men  fail  in  business 
they  are  apt  to  get  blue  and  discouraged  and  give  up  enter 
prise,  and  so  gradually  sink  down  and  lose  their  faculties. 
That 's  the  way  old  Mr.  Snodgrass  did  when  he  failed." 

"But  I  don't  think,  Maria,  that  there  is  the  least  danger 
of  my  husband's  losing  his  mind  —  or  sinking  down,  as 
you  call  it.  I  never  saw  him  more  cheerful  and  seem  to 
take  more  comfort  of  his  life.  Mr.  Van  Arsdel  never  did 
care  for  style  —  except  as  he  thought  it  pleased  me  —  and 
I  believe  he  really  likes  the  way  we  live  now  better  than 
the  way  we  did  before;  he  says  he  has  less  care." 

"And  you  are  willing  to  sink  down  and  be  a  nobody,  and 
have  no  carriage,  and  rub  round  in  omnibuses,  and  have  to 
go  to  little  mean  private  country  board  instead  of  going  to 
Newport,  when  you  might  just  as  well  get  back  the  position 
that  you  had.  Why,  it 's  downright  stupidity,  Nelly  !  " 

"As  to  mean  country  board,"  pleaded  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel, 
"I  don't  know  what  you  mean,  Maria.  We  kept  our  old 
homestead  up  there  in  Vermont,  and  it 's  a  very  respectable 
place  to  spend  our  summer  in." 

"Yes,  and  what  chances  have  the  girls  up  there  —  where 
nobody  sees  them  but  oxen?  The  girls  ought  to  be  con 
sidered.  For  their  sakes  you  ought  to  put  your  husband 
up  to  do  something.  It 's  cruel  to  them,  brought  up  with 
the  expectations  they  have  had,  to  have  to  give  all  up  just 
as  they  are  coming  out.  If  there  is  any  time  that  a  mother 
must  feel  the  want  of  money  it  is  when  she  has  daughters 
just  beginning  to  go  into  society ;  and  it  is  cruel  towards 


THE   FAMILY  DICTATOR  AT  WORK  29 

young  girls  not  to  give  them  the  means  of  dressing  and 
doing  a  little  as  others  do;  and  dress  does  cost  so  abomina 
bly,  nowadays;  it's  perfectly  frightful  —  people  cannot 
live  creditably  on  what  they  used  to." 

"Yes,  certainly,  it  is  frightful  to  think  of  the  require 
ments  of  society  in  these  matters,"  said  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel. 
"Now,  when  you  and  I  were  girls,  Maria,  you  know  we 
managed  to  appear  well  on  a  very  little.  We  embroidered 
our  own  capes  and  collars,  and  wore  white  a  good  deal,  and 
cleaned  our  own  gloves,  and  cut  and  fitted  our  own  dresses ; 
but  then,  dress  was  not  what  it  is  now.  Why,  making  a 
dress  now  is  like  rigging  a  man-of-war  —  it 's  so  compli 
cated  —  there  are  so  many  parts,  and  so  much  trimming. " 

"Oh,  it's  perfectly  fearful,"  said  Aunt  Maria;  "but, 
then,  what  is  one  to  do?  If  one  goes  into  society  with 
people  who  have  so  much  of  all  these  things,  why,  one 
must,  at  least,  make  some  little  approach  to  decent  appear 
ance.  We  must  keep  within  sight  of  them.  All  I  ask," 
she  added  meekly,  "is  to  be  decent.  I  never  expect  to 
run  into  the  extremes  those  Elmores  do  —  the  waste  and 
the  extravagance  that  there  must  be  in  that  family !  And 
there  's  Mrs.  Wat  Sydney  coming  out  with  the  whole  new 
set  of  her  Paris  dresses.  I  should  like  to  know,  for  curi 
osity's  sake,  just  what  that  woman  has  spent  on  her 
dresses ! " 

"Yes,"  said  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel,  warming  with  the  subject, 
"you  know  she  had  all  her  wardrobe  from  Worth,  and 
Worth's  dresses  come  to  something.  Why,  Polly  told  me 
that  the  lace  alone  on  some  of  those  dresses  would  be  a  for 
tune." 

"And  just  to  think  that  Eva  might  have  married  Wat 
Sydney,"  said  Aunt  Maria.  "It  does  seem  as  if  things  in 
this  world  fell  out  on  purpose  to  try  us ! " 

"Well,  I  suppose  they  do,  and  we  ought  to  try  and  im 
prove  by  them,"  said  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel,  who  had  some 


30  WE   AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

weak,  gentle  ideas  of  a  moral  purpose  in  existence,  to  which 
even  the  losses  and  trials  of  lace  and  embroidery  might  be 
made  subservient.  "After  all,"  she  added,  "I  don't 
know  but  we  ought  to  be  contented  with  Eva's  position. 
Eva  always  was  a  peculiar  child.  Under  all  her  sweetness 
and  softness  she  has  quite  a  will  of  her  own;  and,  indeed, 
Harry  is  a  good  fellow,  and  doing  well  in  his  line.  He 
makes  a  very  good  income,  for  a  beginning,  and  he  is  rising 
every  day  in  the  literary  world,  and  I  don't  see  but  that 
they  have  as  good  an  opportunity  to  make  their  way  in 
society  as  the  Sydneys  with  all  their  money." 

"Sophie  Sydney  is  perfectly  devoted  to  Eva,"  said  Aunt 
Maria. 

"And  well  she  may  be,"  answered  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel. 
"In  fact,  Eva  made  that  match;  she  actually  turned  him 
over  to  her.  You  remember  how  she  gave  her  that  prize 
croquet  pin  that  Sydney  gave  her,  and  how  she  talked  to 
Sydney,  and  set  him  to  thinking  of  Sophie  —  oh,  pshaw ! 
Sydney  never  would  have  married  that  girl  in  the  world 
if  it  had  not  been  for  Eva." 

"Well,"  said  Aunt  Maria,  "it 's  as  well  to  cultivate  that 
intimacy.  It  will  be  a  grand  summer  visiting  place  at 
their  house  in  Newport,  and  we  want  visiting  places  for 
the  girls.  I  have  put  two  or  three  anchors  out  to  the 
windward,  in  that  respect.  I  am  going  to  have  the 
Stephenson  girls  at  my  house  this  winter,  and  your  girls 
must  help  show  them  New  York,  and  cultivate  them,  and 
then  there  will  be  a  nice  visiting  place  for  them  at  Judge 
Stephenson 's  next  summer.  You  see  the  judge  lives 
within  an  easy  drive  of  Newport,  so  that  they  can  get  over 
there,  and  see  and  be  seen." 

"I  'm  sure,  Maria,  it 's  good  in  you  to  be  putting  your 
self  out  for  my  girls." 

"  Pshaw,  Nelly,  just  as  if  your  girls  were  not  mine  — 
they  are  all  I  have  to  live  for.  I  can't  stop  any  longer 


THE   FAMILY  DICTATOR  AT   WORK  31 

now,  because  I  must  catch  the  omnibus  to  go  down  to 
Eva's;  I  am  going  to  spend  the  day  with  her.'7 

"How  nicely  Eva  gets  along,"  said  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel, 
with  a  little  pardonable  motherly  pride;  "that  girl  takes 
to  housekeeping  as  if  it  came  natural  to  her." 

"Yes,"  said  Aunt  Maria;  "you  know  I  have  had  Eva 
a  great  deal  under  my  own  eye,  first  and  last,  and  it  shows 
that  early  training  will  tell."  Aunt  Maria  picked  up  this 
crumb  of  self-glorification  with  an  easy  matter-of-fact  air 
which  was  peculiarly  aggravating  to  her  sister. 

In  her  own  mind  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel  thought  it  a  little  too 
bad.  "Maria  always  did  take  the  credit  of  everything 
that  turned  out  well  in  my  family,"  she  said  to  herself, 
"and  blamed  me  for  all  that  went  wrong." 

But  she  was  too  wary  to  murmur  out  loud,  and  bent  her 
head  to  the  yoke  in  silence. 

"Eva  needs  a  little  showing  and  cautioning,"  said  Aunt 
Maria;  "that  Mary  of  hers  ought  to  be  watched,  and  I 
shall  tell  her  so  —  she  must  n't  leave  everything  to  Mary." 

"Oh,  Mary  lived  years  with  me,  and  is  the  most  de 
voted,  faithful  creature,"  said  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel. 

"Never  mind  —  she  needs  watching.  She  's  getting  old 
now,  and  don't  work  as  she  used  to,  and  if  Eva  don't  look 
out  she  won't  get  half  a  woman's  work  out  of  her  —  these 
old  servants  always  take  liberties.  I  shall  look  into  things 
there.  Eva  is  my  girl;  I  sha'n't  let  any  one  get  around 
her ;  "  and  Aunt  Maria  arose  to  go  forth.  But  if  anybody 
supposes  that  two  women  engaged  in  a  morning  talk  are 
going  to  stop  when  one  of  them  rises  to  go,  he  knows  very 
little  of  the  ways  of  womankind.  When  they  have  risen, 
drawn  up  their  shawls,  and  got  ready  to  start,  then  is  the 
time  to  call  a  new  subject,  and  accordingly  Aunt  Maria,  as 
she  was  going  out  the  door,  turned  round  and  said,  "Oh! 
there  now !  I  almost  forgot  what  I  came  for.  What  are 
you  going  to  do  about  the  girls'  party  dresses? " 


32  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

"  Well,  we  shall  get  a  dressmaker  in  the  house.  If  we 
can  get  Silkriggs,  we  shall  try  her." 

"Now,  Nelly,  look  here,  I  have  found  a  real  treasure  — 
the  nicest  little  dressmaker,  just  set  up,  and  who  works 
cheap.  Maria  Meade  told  me  about  her.  She  showed  me 
a  suit  that  she  had  had  made  there  in  imitation  of  a  Paris 
dress,  with  ever  so  much  trimming,  cross-folds  bound  on 
both  edges,  and  twenty  or  thirty  bows,  all  cut  on  the  bias 
and  bound,  and  box-plaiting  with  double  quilling  on  each 
side  all  round  the  bottom,  and  going  up  the  front  —  gradu 
ated,  you  know.  There  was  waist,  and  overskirt,  and  a 
little  sack,  and,  will  you  believe  me,  she  only  asked  fifteen 
dollars  for  making  it  all." 

"You  don't  say  so! " 

"It's  a  fact.  Why,  it  must  have  been  a  good  week's 
work  to  make  that  dress,  even  with  her  sewing-machine. 
Maria  told  me  of  her  as  a  great  secret,  because  she  really 
works  so  well  that  if  folks  knew  it  she  would  be  swamped 
with  work,  and  then  go  to  raising  her  price  —  that 's  what 
they  all  do  when  they  can  get  a  chance  —  but  I  've  been  to 
her  and  engaged  her  for  you." 

"I'm  sure,  Maria,  I  don't  know  what  we  should  do  if 
you  were  not  always  looking  out  for  us." 

"  I  don't  know  —  I  'm  getting  to  be  an  old  woman,"  said 
Aunt  Maria.  "I  'm  not  what  I  was.  But  I  consider  your 
family  as  my  appointed  field  of  labor  —  just  as  our  rector 
said  last  Sunday,  we  must  do  the  duty  next  us.  But  tell 
the  girls  not  to  talk  about  this  dressmaker.  We  shall 
want  all  she  can  do,  and  make  pretty  much  our  own  terms 
with  her.  It 's  nice  and  convenient  for  Eva  that  she  lives 
somewhere  down  in  those  out-of-the-way  regions  where  she 
has  chosen  to  set  up.  Well,  good- morning ;"  and  Aunt 
Maria  opened  the  house  door  and  stood  upon  the  top  of  the 
steps,  when  a  second  postscript  struck  her  mind. 

"There  now!"   said  she,    "I  was  meaning  to  tell  you 


THE  FAMILY   DICTATOR   AT   WORK  33 

that  it  is  getting  to  be  reported  everywhere  that  Alice  and 
Jim  Fellows  are  engaged." 

"Oh,  well,  of  course  there's  nothing  in  it,"  said  Mrs. 
Van  Arsdel.  "I  don't  think  Alice  would  think  of  him 
for  a  moment.  She  likes  him  as  a  friend,  that 's  all." 

"I  don't  know,  Nelly;  you  can't  be  too  much  on  your 
guard.  Alice  is  a  splendid  girl,  and  might  have  almost 
anybody.  Between  you  and  me  —  now,  Nelly,  you  must 
be  sure  not  to  mention  it  —  but  Mr.  Davenport  has  been 
very  much  struck  with  her." 

"Oh,  Maria,  how  can  you?  Why,  his  wife  hasn't  been 
dead  a  year !  " 

"Oh,  pshaw!  these  widowers  don't  always  govern  their 
eyes  by  the  almanac,"  said  Aunt  Maria,  with  a  laugh. 
"  Of  course,  John  Davenport  will  marry  again.  I  always 
knew  that;  and  Alice  would  be  a  splendid  woman  to  be  at 
the  head  of  his  establishment.  At  any  rate,  at  the  little 
company  the  other  night  at  his  sister's,  Mrs.  Singleton's, 
you  know,  he  was  perfectly  devoted  to  her,  and  I  thought 
Mrs.  Singleton  seemed  to  like  it." 

"It  would  certainly  be  a  fine  position,  if  Alice  can  fancy 
him,"  said  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel.  "Seems  to  me  he  is  rather 
querulous  and  dyspeptic,  is  n't  he  1 " 

"Oh,  well,  yes;  his  health  is  delicate;  he  needs  a  wife 
to  take  care  of  him." 

"He  's  so  yellow!  "  ruminated  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel  ingenu 
ously.  "I  never  could  bear  thin,  yellow  men." 

"Oh,  come,  don't  you  begin,  Nelly  —  it's  bad  enough 
to  have  girls  with  their  fancies.  What  we  ought  to  look 
at  are  the  solid  excellences.  What  a  pity  that  the  marry 
ing  age  always  comes  when  girls  have  the  least  sense! 
John  Davenport  is  a  solid  man,  and  if  he  should  take  a 
fancy  to  Alice,  it  would  be  a  great  piece  of  good  luck. 
Alice  ought  to  be  careful,  and  not  have  these  reports 
around,  about  her  and  Jim  Fellows;  it  just  keeps  oft  ad- 


34  WE  AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

vantageous  offers.  I  shall  talk  to  Alice  the  first  time  I 
get  a  chance." 

"Oh,  pray  don't,  Maria  —  I  don't  think  it  would  do 
any  good.  Alice  is  very  set  in  her  way,  and  it  might  put 
her  up  to  make  something  of  it  more  than  there  is." 

"Oh,  never  fear  me,"  said  Aunt  Maria,  nodding  her 
head;  "I  understand  Alice,  and  know  just  what  needs  to 
be  said.  I  sha'n't  do  her  any  harm,  you  may  be  sure," 
and  Aunt  Maria,  espying  her  omnibus  afar,  ran  briskly 
down  the  steps,  thus  concluding  the  conference. 

Now  it  happened  that  adjoining  the  parlor  where  this 
conversation  had  taken  place  was  a  little  writing-cabinet 
which  Mr.  Van  Arsdel  often  used  for  the  purposes  of  letter- 
writing.  On  this  morning,  when  his  wife  supposed  him 
out  as  usual  at  his  office,  he  had  retired  there  to  attend  to 
some  correspondence.  The  entrance  was  concealed  by 
drapery,  and  so  he  had  been  an  unintentional  and  unsus 
pected  but  much  amused  listener  to  Aunt  Maria's  adjura 
tions  to  his  wife  on  his  behalf.  All  through  his  subsequent 
labors  of  the  pen  he  might  have  been  observed  to  pause 
from  time  to  time  and  laugh  to  himself.  The  idea  of  lying 
as  a  quiet  dead  weight  on  the  wheels  of  the  progress  of  his 
energetic  relation  was  something  vastly  pleasing  to  the  dry 
and  secretive  turn  of  his  humor  —  and  he  rather  liked  it 
than  otherwise. 

"We  shall  see  whether  I  am  losing  my  faculties,"  he 
said  to  himself,  as  he  gathered  up  his  letters  and  departed. 


CHAPTER  IV 

EVA  HENDERSON  TO  HARRY'S  MOTHER 

MY  DEAR  MOTHER,  —  Harry  says  I  must  do  all  the 
writing  to  you  and  keep  you  advised  of  all  our  affairs, 
because  he  is  so  driven  with  his  editing  and  proof-reading 
that  letter- writing  is  often  the  most  fatiguing  thing  he  can 
do.  It  is  like  trying  to  run  after  one  has  become  quite  out 
of  breath. 

The  fact  is,  dear  mother,  the  demands  of  this  New  York 
newspaper  life  are  terribly  exhausting.  It 's  a  sort  of  red- 
hot  atmosphere  of  hurry  and  competition.  Magazines  and 
newspapers  jostle  each  other,  and  run  races,  neck  and  neck, 
and  everybody  connected  with  them  is  kept  up  to  the  very 
top  of  his  speed,  or  he  is  thrown  out  of  the  course.  You 
see,  Bolton  and  Harry  have  between  them  the  oversight  of 
three  papers  —  a  monthly  magazine  for  the  grown  folk, 
another  for  the  children,  and  a  weekly  paper.  Of  course 
there  are  sub- editors,  but  they  have  the  general  responsi 
bility,  and  so,  you  see,  they  are  on  the  qui  vive  all  the  time 
to  keep  up;  for  there  are  other  papers  and  magazines  run 
ning  against  them,  and  the  price  of  success  seems  to  be 
eternal  vigilance.  What  is  exacted  of  an  editor  nowa 
days  seems  to  be  a  sort  of  general  omniscience.  He  must 
keep  the  run  of  everything,  —  politics,  science,  religion, 
art,  agriculture,  general  literature;  the  world  is  alive  and 
moving  everywhere,  and  he  must  know  just  what 's  going 
on  and  be  able  to  have  an  opinion  ready  made  and  ready 
to  go  to  press  at  any  moment.  He  must  tell  to  a  T  just  what 
they  are  doing  in  Ashantee  and  Dahomey,  and  what  they 


36  WE  AND   OUR  NEIGHBOES 

don't  do  and  ought  to  do  in  New  York.  He  must  be  wise 
and  instructive  about  currency  and  taxes  and  tariffs,  and 
able  to  guide  Congress;  and  then  he  must  take  care  of  the 
Church,  —  know  just  what  the  Old  Catholics  are  up  to, 
the  last  new  kink  of  the  Ritualists,  and  the  right  and 
wrong  of  all  the  free  fights  in  the  different  denominations. 
It  really  makes  my  little  head  spin  just  to  hear  what  they 
are  getting  up  articles  about.  Bolton  and  Harry  are  kept 
on  the  chase,  looking  up  men  whose  specialties  lie  in  these 
lines  to  write  for  them.  They  have  now  in  tow  a  Jewish 
Rabbi,  who  is  going  to  do  something  about  the  Talmud,  or 
Targums,  or  something  of  that  sort;  and  a  returned  mis 
sionary  from  the  Gaboon  River,  who  entertained  Du  Chaillu 
and  can  speak  authentically  about  the  gorilla;  and  a  lively 
young  doctor  who  is  devoting  his  life  to  the  study  of  the 
brain  and  nervous  system.  Then  there  are  all  sorts  of 
writing  men  and  women  sending  pecks  and  bushels  of  arti 
cles  to  be  printed,  and  getting  furious  if  they  are  not 
printed,  though  the  greater  part  of  them  are  such  hopeless 
trash  that  you  only  need  to  read  four  lines  to  know  that 
they  are  good  for  nothing;  but  they  all  expect  them  to  be 
remailed  with  explanations  and  criticisms,  and  the  ladies 
sometimes  write  letters  of  wrath  to  Harry  that  are  perfectly 
fearful. 

Altogether  there  is  a  good  deal  of  an  imbroglio,  and  you 
see  with  it  all  how  he  comes  to  be  glad  that  I  have  a  turn 
for  letter- writing  and  can  keep  you  informed  of  how  we  of 
the  interior  go  on.  My  business  in  it  all  is  to  keep  a 
quiet,  peaceable,  restful  home,  where  he  shall  always  have 
the  enjoyment  of  seeing  beautiful  things  and  find  every 
thing  going  on  nicely  without  having  to  think  why,  or 
how,  or  wherefore;  and,  besides  this,  to  do  every  little 
odd  and  end  for  him  that  he  is  too  tired  or  too  busy  to  do ; 
in  short,  I  suppose  some  of  the  ambitious  lady  leaders  of 
our  time  would  call  it  playing  second  fiddle.  Yes,  that  is 


EVA  HENDERSON  TO  HARRY'S  MOTHER      37 

it;  but  there  must  be  second  fiddles  in  an  orchestra,  and 
it 's  fortunate  that  I  have  precisely  the  talent  for  playing 
one,  and  my  doctrine  is  that  the  second  fiddle  well  played 
is  quite  as  good  as  the  first.  What  would  the  first  be 
without  it  ? 

After  all,  in  this  great  fuss  about  the  men's  sphere  and 
the  women's,  isn't  the  women's  ordinary  work  just  as  im 
portant  and  great  in  its  way  ?  For,  you  see,  it 's  what  the 
men  with  all  their  greatness  can't  do,  for  the  life  of  them. 
I  can  go  a  good  deal  further  in  Harry's  sphere  than  he  can 
in  mine.  I  can  judge  about  the  merits  of  a  translation 
from  the  French,  or  criticise  an  article  or  story,  a  great 
deal  better  than  he  can  settle  the  difference  between  the 
effect  of  tucking  and  inserting  in  a  dress,  or  of  cherry  and 
solferino  in  curtains.  Harry  appreciates  a  room  prettily 
got  up  as  well  as  any  man,  but  how  to  get  it  up  —  all  the 
shades  of  color  and  niceties  of  arrangement,  the  thousand 
little  differences  and  agreements  that  go  to  it  —  he  can't 
comprehend.  So  this  man  and  woman  question  is  just 
like  the  quarrel  between  the  mountain  and  the  squirrel  in 
Emerson's  poem,  where  "Bun"  talks  to  the  mountain:  — 

"  If  I  am  not  so  big  as  you, 
You  're  not  so  small  as  I, 
And  not  half  so  spry. 
If  I  cannot  carry  forests  on  my  back, 
Neither  can  you  crack  a  nut." 

I  am  quite  satisfied  that,  first  and  last,  I  shall  crack 
a  good  many  nuts  for  Harry.  Not  that  I  am  satisfied  with 
a  mere  culinary  or  housekeeping  excellence,  or  even  an 
artistic  and  poetic  skill  in  making  home  lovely ;  I  do  want 
a  sense  of  something  noble  and  sacred  in  life  —  something 
to  satisfy  a  certain  feeling  of  the  heroic  that  always  made 
me  unhappy  and  disgusted  with  my  aimless  fashionable 
girl  career.  I  always  sympathized  with  Ida,  and  admired 
her  because  she  had  force  enough  to  do  something  that  she 
thought  was  going  to  make  the  world  better.  It  is  better 


38  WE  AND   OUK  NEIGHBORS 

to  try  and  fail  with  such  a  purpose  as  hers  than  never  to 
try  at  all;  and  in  that  point  of  view  I  sympathize  with  the 
whole  woman  movement,  though  I  see  no  place  for  myself 
in  it.  But  my  religion,  poor  as  it  is,  has  always  given 
this  incitement  to  me:  I  never  could  see  how  one  could 
profess  to  be  a  Christian  at  all  and  not  live  a  heroic  life  — 
though  I  know  I  never  have.  When  I  hear  in  church  of 
the  "glorious  company  of  the  apostles,"  the  "goodly  fel 
lowship  of  the  prophets,"  the  "noble  army  of  martyrs,"  I 
have  often  such  an  uplift  —  and  the  tears  come  to  my  eyes, 
and  then  my  life  seems  so  poor  and  petty,  so  frittered  away 
in  trifles.  Then  the  Communion  service  of  our  Church 
always  impresses  me  as  something  so  serious,  so  profound, 
that  I  have  wondered  how  I  dared  go  through  with  it ;  and 
it  always  made  me  melancholy  and  dissatisfied  with  myself. 
To  offer  one's  soul  and  body  and  spirit  to  God  a  living  sac 
rifice  surely  ought  to  mean  something  that  should  make 
one's  life  noble  and  heroic,  yet  somehow  it  didn't  do  so 
with  mine. 

It  was  one  thing  that  drew  me  to  Harry,  that  he  seemed 
to  me  an  earnest,  religious  man,  and  I  told  him  when  we 
were  first  engaged  that  he  must  be  my  guide;  but  he  said 
no,  we  must  go  hand  in  hand,  and  guide  each  other,  and 
together  we  would  try  to  find  the  better  way.  Harry  is 
very  good  to  me  in  being  willing  to  go  with  me  to  my 
Church.  I  told  him  I  was  weak  in  religion  at  any  rate, 
and  all  my  associations  with  good  and  holy  things  were 
with  my  Church,  and  I  really  felt  afraid  to  trust  myself 
without  them.  I  have  tried  going  to  his  sort  of  services 
with  him,  but  these  extemporaneous  prayers  don't  often 
help  me.  I  find  myself  weighing  and  considering  in  my 
own  mind  whether  that  is  what  I  really  do  feel  or  ask ;  and 
if  one  is  judging  or  deciding  one  can't  be  praying  at  the 
same  time.  Now  and  then  I  hear  a  good  man  who  so  wraps 
me  up  in  his  sympathies,  and  breathes  such  a  spirit  of 


EVA  HENDERSON  TO  HARRY'S  MOTHER      39 

prayer  as  carries  me  without  effort,  and  that  is  lovely ;  but 
it  is  so  rare  a  gift !  In  general,  I  long  for  the  dear  old 
prayers  of  my  Church,  where  my  poor  little  naughty  heart 
has  learned  the  way  and  can  go  on  with  full  consent  with 
out  stopping  to  think. 

So  Harry  and  I  have  settled  on  attending  an  Episcopal 
mission  church  in  our  part  of  the  city.  Its  worshipers  are 
mostly  among  the  poor,  and  Harry  thinks  we  might  do 
good  by  going  there.  Our  rector  is  a  young  Mr.  St.  John, 
a  man  as  devoted  as  any  of  the  primitive  Christians.  I 
never  saw  anybody  go  into  work  for  others  with  more  en 
tire  self-sacrifice.  He  has  some  property,  and  he  supports 
himself  and  pays  about  half  the  expenses  of  the  mission 
besides.  All  this  excites  Harry's  respect,  and  he  is  will 
ing  to  do  himself  and  have  me  do  all  we  can  to  help  him. 
Both  Alice  and  I,  and  my  younger  sisters,  Angelique  and 
Marie,  have  taken  classes  in  his  mission  school,  and  the 
girls  help  every  week  in  a  sewing-school,  and,  so  far  as 
practical  work  is  concerned,  everything  moves  beautifully. 
But  then,  Mr.  St.  John  is  very  High  Church  and  very 
stringent  in  his  notions,  and  Harry,  who  is  ultra-liberal, 
says  he  is  good,  but  narrow ;  and  so  when  they  are  togethei 
I  am  quite  nervous  about  them.  I  want  Mr.  St.  John  to 
appear  well  to  Harry,  and  I  want  Harry  to  please  Mr.  St. 
John.  Harry  is  aesthetic  and  likes  the  Church  services, 
and  is  ready  to  go  as  far  as  anybody  could  ask  in  the  way 
of  interesting  and  beautiful  rites  and  ceremonies,  and  he 
likes  antiquities  and  all  that,  and  so  to  a  certain  extent 
they  get  on  nicely;  but  come  to  the  question  of  church 
authority,  and  Lloyd  Garrison  and  all  the  radicals  are  not 
more  untamable.  He  gets  quite  wild,  and  frightens  me 
lest  dear  Mr.  St.  John  should  think  him  an  infidel.  And, 
in  fact,  Harry  has  such  a  sort  of  latitudinarian  way  of  hear 
ing  what  all  sorts  of  people  have  to  say,  and  admitting  bits 
of  truth  here  and  there  in  it,  as  sometimes  makes  me  rather 


40  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

uneasy.  He  talks  with  these  Darwinians  and  scientific 
men  who  have  an  easy  sort  of  matter-of-course  way  of 
assuming  that  the  Bible  is  nothing  but  an  old  curiosity- 
shop  of  bygone  literature,  and  is  so  tolerant  in  hearing  all 
they  have  to  say,  that  I  quite  burn  to  testify  and  stand  up 
for  my  faith  —  if  I  knew  enough  to  do  it ;  but  I  really  feel 
afraid  to  ask  Mr.  St.  John  to  help  me,  because  he  is  so  set 
and  solemn,  and  confines  himself  to  announcing  that  thus 
and  so  is  the  voice  of  the  Church;  and  you  see  that  don't 
help  me  to  keep  up  my  end  with  people  that  don't  care  for 
the  Church. 

But,  mother  dear,  isn't  there  some  end  to  toleration? 
Ought  we  Christians  to  sit  by  and  hear  all  that  is  dearest 
and  most  sacred  to  us  spoken  of  as  a  bygone  superstition, 
and  smile  assent  on  the  ground  that  everybody  must  be 
free  to  express  his  opinions  in  good  society?  Now,  for 
instance,  there  is  this  young  Dr.  Campbell,  whom  Harry 
is  in  treaty  with  for  articles  on  the  brain  and  nervous  sys 
tem —  a  nice,  charming,  agreeable  fellow,  and  a  perfect 
enthusiast  in  science,  and  has  got  so  far  that  love  or  hatred 
or  inspiration  or  heroism  or  religion  is  nothing  in  his  view 
but  what  he  calls  "cerebration"  —  he  is  so  lost  and  ab 
sorbed  in  cerebration  and  molecules,  and  all  that  sort  of 
thing,  that  you  feel  all  the  time  he  is  observing  you  to  get 
facts  about  some  of  his  theories  as  they  do  the  poor  mice 
and  butterflies  they  experiment  with. 

The  other  day  he  was  talking,  in  his  taking-f or- granted, 
rapid  way,  about  the  absurdity  of  believing  in  prayer,  when 
I  stopped  him  squarely,  and  told  him  that  he  ought  not  to 
talk  in  that  way ;  that  to  destroy  faith  in  prayer  was  taking 
away  about  all  the  comfort  that  poor,  sorrowful,  oppressed 
people  had.  I  said  it  was  just  like  going  through  a  hospi 
tal  and  pulling  all  the  pillows  from  under  the  sick  people's 
heads  because  there  might  be  a  more  perfect  scientific  in 
vention  by  and  by,  and  that  I  thought  it  was  cruel  and 


EVA  HENDERSON  TO  HARRY'S  MOTHER      41 

hard  hearted  to  do  it.  He  looked  really  astonished,  and 
asked  me  if  I  believed  in  prayer.  I  told  him  our  Saviour 
had  said,  "Ask,  and  ye  shall  receive,"  and  I  believed  it. 
He  seemed  quite  astonished  at  my  zeal,  and  said  he  didn't 
suppose  any  really  cultivated  people  nowadays  believed 
those  things.  I  told  him  I  believed  everything  that  Jesus 
Christ  said,  and  thought  he  knew  more  than  all  the  philoso 
phers,  and  that  he  said  we  had  a  Father  that  loved  us  and 
cared  for  us,  even  to  the  hairs  of  our  heads,  and  that  I 
shouldn't  have  courage  to  live  if  I  didn't  believe  that. 
Harry  says  I  did  right  to  speak  up  as  I  did.  Dr.  Camp 
bell  don't  seem  to  be  offended  with  me,  for  he  comes  here 
more  than  ever.  He  is  an  interesting  fellow,  full  of  life 
and  enthusiasm  in  his  profession,  and  I  like  to  hear  him 
talk. 

But  here  I  am,  right  in  the  debatable  land  between 
faith  and  no  faith.  On  the  part  of  a  great  many  of  the 
intelligent,  good  men  whom  Harry,  for  one  reason  or  other, 
invites  to  our  house,  and  wants  me  to  be  agreeable  to,  are 
all  shades  of  opinion,  of  half  faith,  and  no  faith,  and  I 
don't  wish  to  hush  free  conversation,  or  to  be  treated  like 
a  baby  who  will  cry  if  they  make  too  much  noise ;  and  then 
on  the  other  hand  is  Mr.  St.  John,  —  whom  I  regard  with 
reverence  on  account  of  his  holy,  self-denying  life,  —  who 
stands  so  definitely  intrenched  within  the  limits  of  the 
Church,  and  does  not  in  his  own  mind  ever  admit  a  doubt 
of  anything  which  the  Church  has  settled;  and  between 
them  and  Harry  and  all  I  don't  know  just  what  I  ought 
to  do. 

I  am  sure,  if  there  is  a  man  in  the  world  who  means  in 
all  things  to  live  the  Christian  life,  it 's  Harry.  There  is 
no  difference  between  him  and  Mr.  St.  John  there.  He  is 
ready  for  any  amount  of  self-sacrifice,  and  goes  with  Mr. 
St.  John  to  the  extent  of  his  ability  in  his  efforts  to  do 
good;  and  yet  he  really  does  not  believe  a  great  many 


42  WE  AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

things  that  Mr.  St.  John  thinks  are  Christian  doctrines. 
He  says  he  believes  only  in  the  wheat,  and  not  in  the 
chaff,  and  that  it  is  only  the  chaff  that  will  be  blown  away 
in  these  modern  discussions.  With  all  this,  I  feel  nervous 
and  anxious,  and  sometimes  wish  I  could  go  right  into 
some  good,  safe,  dark  church,  and  pull  down  all  the  blinds, 
and  shut  all  the  doors,  and  keep  out  all  the  bustle  of  mod 
ern  thinking,  and  pray,  and  meditate,  and  have  a  lovely, 
quiet  time. 

Mr.  St.  John  lends  me  from  time  to  time  some  of  his 
ritualistic  books ;  and  they  are  so  refined  and  scholarly,  and 
yet  so  devout,  that  Harry  and  I  are  quite  charmed  with 
their  tone;  but  I  can't  help  seeing  that,  as  Harry  says, 
they  lead  right  back  into  the  Romish  Church  —  and  by  a 
way  that  seems  enticingly  beautiful.  Sometimes  I  think 
it  would  be  quite  delightful  to  have  a  spiritual  director 
who  would  save  you  all  the  trouble  of  deciding,  and  take 
your  case  in  hand  and  tell  you  exactly  what  to  do  at  every 
step.  Mr.  St.  John,  I  know,  would  be  just  the  person 
to  assume  such  a  position.  He  is  a  natural  schoolmaster, 
and  likes  to  control  people,  and,  although  he  is  so  very 
gentle,  I  always  feel  that  he  is  very  stringent,  and  that 
if  I  once  allowed  him  ascendancy  he  would  make  no  allow 
ances.  I  can  feel  the  main  de  fer  through  the  perfect 
gentlemanly  polish  of  his  exterior;  but,  you  see,  I  know 
Harry  never  would  go  completely  under  his  influence,  and 
I  shrink  from  anything  that  would  divide  me  from  my  hus 
band,  and  so  I  don't  make  any  move  in  that  direction. 

You  see,  I  write  to  you  all  about  these  matters,  for  my 
mamma  is  a  sweet,  good  little  woman  who  never  troubles 
her  head  with  anything  in  this  line,  and  my  godmother, 
Aunt  Maria,  is  a  dear  worldly  old  soul,  whose  heart  is 
grieved  within  her  because  I  care  so  little  for  the  pomps 
and  vanities.  She  takes  it  to  heart  that  Harry  and  I  have 
definitely  resolved  to  give  up  party-going,  and  all  that 


EVA  HENDERSON  TO  HARRY'S  MOTHER      43 

useless  round  of  calling  and  dressing  and  visiting  that  is 
called  "going  into  society,"  and  she  sometimes  complicates 
matters  by  trying  her  forces  to  get  me  into  those  old 
grooves  I  was  so  tired  of  running  in.  I  never  pretend  to 
talk  to  her  of  the  deeper  wants  or  reasons  of  my  life,  for  it 
would  be  ludicrously  impossible  to  make  her  understand. 
She  is  a  person  over  whose  mind  never  came  the  shadow 
of  a  doubt  that  she  was  right  in  her  views  of  life;  and  I 
am  not  the  person  to  evangelize  her. 

Well  now,  dear  mother,  imagine  a  further  complication. 
Harry  is  very  anxious  that  we  should  have  an  evening  once 
a  week  to  receive  our  friends  —  an  informal,  quiet,  socia 
ble,  talking  evening,  on  a  sort  of  ideal  plan  of  his,  in  which 
everybody  is  to  be  made  easy  and  at  home,  and  to  spend 
just  such  a  quiet,  social  hour  as  at  one's  own  chimney- 
corner.  But  fancy  my  cares,  with  all  the  menagerie  of  our 
very  miscellaneous  acquaintances!  I  should  be  like  the 
man  in  the  puzzle  who  had  to  get  the  fox  and  goose  and 
corn  over  in  one  boat  without  having  any  of  them  eaten. 
Fancy  Jim  Fellows  and  Mr.  St.  John !  Dr.  Campbell,  with 
his  molecules  and  cerebration,  talking  to  my  little  Quaker 
dove,  with  her  white  wings  and  simple  faith,  or  Aunt 
Maria  and  mamma  conversing  with  a  Jewish  Rabbi!  I 
believe  our  family  have  a  vague  impression  that  Jews  are 
disreputable,  however  gentlemanly  and  learned;  and  I 
don't  know  but  Mr.  St.  John  would  feel  shocked  at  him. 
Nevertheless,  our  Rabbi  is  a  very  excellent  German  gentle 
man,  and  one  of  the  most  interesting  talkers  I  have  heard. 
Oh !  then  there  are  our  rococo  antiquities  across  the  street, 
Miss  Dorcas  Vanderheyden  and  her  sister.  What  shall  I 
do  with  them  all  1  Harry  has  such  boundless  confidence 
in  my  powers  of  doing  the  agreeable  that  he  seems  to  think 
I  can,  out  of  this  material,  make  a  most  piquant  and  origi 
nal  combination.  I  have  an  awful  respect  for  the  art  de 
tenir  salon,  and  don't  wonder  that  among  our  artistic 


44  WE   AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

French  neighbors  it  got  to  be  a  perfect  science.      But  am 
I  the  woman  born  to  do  it  in  New  York  ? 

Well,  there  's  no  way  to  get  through  the  world  but  to 
keep  doing,  and  to  attack  every  emergency  with  courage. 
I  shall  do  my  possible,  and  let  you  know  of  my  success. 

Your  daughter,  EVA. 


CHAPTER  V 

A    TEMPEST    IN    A    TEAPOT 

THE  housekeeping  establishment  of  Eva  Henderson,  nee 
Van  Arsdel,  was  in  its  way  a  model  of  taste,  order,  and 
comfort.  There  was  that  bright,  attractive,  cosy  air  about 
it  that  spoke  of  refined  tastes  and  hospitable  feelings  —  it 
was  such  a  creation  as  only  the  genius  of  a  thorough  home- 
artist  could  originate.  There  are  artists  who  work  in  clay 
and  marble,  there  are  artists  in  water-colors,  and  artists  in 
oils,  whose  works  are  on  exhibition  through  galleries  and 
museums :  but  there  are  also,  in  thousands  of  obscure  homes, 
domestic  artists,  who  contrive  out  of  the  humblest  material 
to  produce  in  daily  life  the  sense  of  the  beautiful;  to  cast 
a  veil  over  its  prosaic  details  and  give  it  something  of  the 
charm  of  a  poem.  Eva  was  one  of  these,  and  everybody 
that  entered  her  house  felt  her  power  at  once  in  the  atmos 
phere  of  grace  and  enjoyment  which  seemed  to  pervade 
her  rooms. 

But  there  was  underneath  all  this  an  unseen,  humble 
operator,  without  whom  one  step  in  the  direction  of  poetry 
would  have  been  impossible ;  one  whose  sudden  withdrawal 
would  have  been  like  the  entrance  of  a  black  frost  into  a 
flower  garden,  leaving  desolation  and  unsightliness  around  : 
and  this  strong  pivot  on  which  the  order  and  beauty 
of  all  the  fairy  contrivances  of  the  little  mistress  turned 
was  no  other  than  the  Irish  Mary  McArthur,  cook,  cham 
bermaid,  laundress,  and  general  operator  and  adviser  of 
the  whole. 

Mary  was  a  specimen  of  the  best  class  of  those  women 


46  WE  AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

whom  the  old  country  sends  to  our  shores.  She  belonged 
to  the  family  of  a  respectable  Irish  farmer,  and  had  been 
carefully  trained  in  all  household  economies  and  sanctities. 
A  school  kept  on  the  estate  of  their  landlord  had  been  the 
means  of  instructing  her  in  the  elements  of  a  plain  English 
education.  She  wrote  a  good  hand,  was  versed  in  accounts, 
and  had  been  instructed  in  all  branches  of  needlework 
with  a  care  and  particularity  from  which  our  American 
schools  for  girls  might  take  a  lesson.  A  strong  sense  of 
character  pervaded  her  family  life  —  a  sense  of  the  deco 
rous,  the  becoming,  the  true  and  honest,  such  as  often  gives 
dignity  to  the  cottage  of  the  laboring  man  of  the  Old  World. 
But  the  golden  stories  of  wealth  to  be  gotten  in  America 
had  induced  her  parents  to  allow  Mary  with  her  elder 
brother  to  try  their  fortunes  on  these  unknown  shores. 
Mary  had  been  fortunate  in  falling  into  the  Van  Arsdel 
family;  for  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel,  though  without  the  energy 
or  the  patience  which  would  have  been  necessary  to  control 
or  train  an  inexperienced  and  unsteady  subject,  was,  on 
the  whole,  appreciative  of  the  sterling  good  qualities  of 
Mary,  and  liberal  and  generous  in  her  dealings  with  her. 

In  fact,  the  Van  Arsdels  were  in  all  things  a  free,  care 
less,  good-natured,  merry  set,  and  Mary  reciprocated  their 
kindliness  to  her  with  all  the  warmth  of  her  Irish  heart. 
Eva  had  been  her  particular  pet  and  darling.  She  was  a 
pretty,  engaging  child  at  the  time  she  first  came  into  the 
family.  Mary  had  mended  her  clothes,  tidied  her  room, 
studied  her  fancies  and  tastes,  and  petted  her  generally 
with  a  whole-souled  devotion.  "When  you  get  a  husband, 
Miss  Eva,"  she  would  say,  "I  will  come  and  live  with 
you."  But  before  that  event  had  come  to  pass,  Mary  had 
given  her  whole  heart  to  an  idle,  handsome,  worthless  fel 
low,  whom  she  appeared  to  love  in  direct  proportion  to  his 
good-for-nothingness.  Two  daughters  were  the  offspring 
of  this  marriage,  and  then  Mary  became  a  widow,  and  had 


A  TEMPEST   IN  A  TEAPOT  47 

come  with  her  younger  child  under  the  shadow  of  "Miss 
Eva's  "  roof- tree. 

Thus  much  to  give  background  to  the  scenery  on  which 
Aunt  Maria  entered,  on  the  morning  when  she  took  the 
omnibus  at  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel's  door. 

Eva  was  gone  out  when  the  door-bell  of  the  little  house 
rang.  Mary  looking  from  the  chamber  window  saw  Mrs. 
Wouvermans  standing  at  the  door-step.  Now  against  this 
good  lady  Mary  had  always  cherished  a  secret  antagonism. 
Nothing  so  awakens  the  animosity  of  her  class  as  the  en 
trance  of  a  third  power  into  the  family,  between  the  reg 
nant  mistress  and  the  servants;  and  Aunt  Maria's  intru 
sions  and  dictations  had  more  than  once  been  discussed  in 
the  full  parliament  of  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel's  servants.  Conse 
quently  the  arrival  of  a  police  officer  armed  with  a  search- 
warrant  could  not  have  been  more  disagreeable  or  alarm 
ing.  In  an  instant  Mary's  mental  eye  ran  over  all  her 
own  demesne  and  premises  —  for  when  one  woman  is  both 
chambermaid,  cook,  and  laundress,  it  may  well  be  that  each 
part  of  these  different  departments  cannot  be  at  all  times  in 
a  state  of  absolute  perfection.  There  was  a  cellar-table 
that  she  had  been  intending  this  very  morning  to  revise; 
there  were  various  shortcomings  in  pantry  and  closet  which 
she  had  intended  to  set  in  order. 

But  the  course  of  Mrs.  Wouvermans  was  straight  and 
unflinching  as  justice.  A  brisk  interrogation  to  the  awe 
struck  little  maiden  who  opened  the  door  showed  her  that 
Eva  was  out,  and  the  field  was  all  before  her.  So  she 
marched  into  the  parlor,  and,  laying  aside  her  things,  pro 
ceeded  to  review  the  situation.  From  the  parlor  to  the 
little  dining-room  was  the  work  of  a  moment;  thence  to 
the  china  closet,  where  she  opened  cupboards  and  drawers 
and  took  note  of  their  contents;  thence  to  the  kitchen  and 
kitchen  pantry,  where  she  looked  into  the  flour-barrel,  the 
sugar-barrel,  the  safe,  the  cake-box,  and  took  notes. 


48  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

When  Mary  had  finished  her  chamber  work  and  came 
down  to  the  kitchen,  she  found  her  ancient  adversary 
emerging  from  the  cellar  with  several  leaves  of  cabhage  in 
her  hands  which  she  had  gathered  off  from  the  offending 
table.  In  her  haste  to  make  a  salad  for  a  sudden  access  of 
company,  the  day  before,  Mary  had  left  these  witnesses, 
and  she  saw  that  her  sin  had  found  her  out. 

"Good-morning,  Mary,"  said  Mrs.  Wouvermans  in  the 
curt,  dry  tone  that  she  used  in  speaking  to  servants.  "I 
brought  up  these  cabbage  leaves  to  show  you.  Nothing  is 
more  dangerous,  Mary,  than  to  leave  any  refuse  vegetables 
in  a  cellar;  if  girls  are  careless  about  such  matters,  they  get 
thrown  down  on  the  floor  and  rot  and  send  up  a  poisonous 
exhalation  that  breeds  fevers.  I  have  known  whole  fami 
lies  poisoned  by  the  neglect  of  girls  in  these  little  matters. " 

"Mrs.  Wouvermans,  I  was  intending  this  very  morning 
to  come  down  and  attend  to  that  matter,  and  all  the  other 
matters  about  the  house,"  said  Mary.  "There  has  been 
company  here  this  week,  and  I  have  had  a  deal  to  do." 

"And  Mary,  you  ought  to  be  very  careful  never  to  leave 
the  lid  of  your  cake-box  up  —  it  dries  the  cake.  I  am 
very  particular  about  mine." 

"And  so  am  I,  ma'am;  and  if  my  cake- box  was  open  it 
is  because  somebody  has  been  to  it  since  I  shut  it.  It  may 
be  that  Mrs.  Henderson  has  taken  something  out." 

"I  noticed,  Mary,  a  broom  in  the  parlor  closet  not  hung 
up;  it  ruins  brooms  to  set  them  down  in  that  way." 

By  this  time  the  hot,  combative  blood  of  Ireland  rose  in 
Mary's  cheek,  and  she  turned  and  stood  at  bay. 

"Mrs.  Wouvermans,  you  are  not  my  mistress,  and  this 
is  not  your  house;  and  I  am  not  going  to  answer  to  you, 
but  to  Mrs.  Henderson,  about  my  matters." 

"Mary,  don't  you  speak  to  me  in  that  way,"  said  Mrs. 
Wouvermans,  drawing  herself  up. 

"I  shall  speak  in  just  that  way  to  anybody  who  comes 


A   TEMPEST   IN   A  TEAPOT  49 

meddling  with  what  they  have  no  business  with.  If  you 
was  my  mistress,  I  'd  tell  you  to  suit  yourself  to  a  better 
girl;  and  I  shall  ask  Mrs.  Henderson  if  I  am  to  be  over 
looked  in  this  way.  No  lady  would  ever  do  it,"  said 
Mary,  with  a  hot  emphasis  on  the  word  '  lady, '  and  tears  of 
wrath  in  her  eyes. 

"There  's  no  use  in  being  impertinent,  Mary,"  said  Mrs. 
Wouvermans,  with  stately  superiority,  as  she  turned  and 
sailed  upstairs,  leaving  Mary  in  a  tempest  of  impotent 
anger. 

Just  about  this  time  Eva  returned  from  her  walk  with 
a  basket  full  of  cut  flowers,  and  came  singing  into  the 
kitchen  and  began  arranging  flower  vases;  not  having 
looked  into  the  parlor  on  her  way,  she  did  not  detect  the 
traces  of  Aunt  Maria's  presence. 

"Well,  Mary,"  she  called,  in  her  usual  cheerful  tone, 
"come  and  look  at  my  flowers." 

But  Mary  came  not,  although  Eva  perceived  her  with 
her  back  turned  in  the  pantry. 

"  Why,  Mary,  what  is  the  matter  ? "  said  Eva,  following 
her  there  and  seeing  her  crying.  "  Why,  you  dear  soul, 
what  has  happened  ?  Are  you  sick  ?  " 

"Your  Aunt  Maria  has  been  here." 

"Oh,  the  horrors,  Mary.  Poor  Aunt  Maria!  you 
must  n't  mind  a  word  she  says.  Don't  worry,  now  —  don't 
—  you  know  Aunt  Maria  is  always  saying  things  to  us  girls, 
but  we  don't  mind  it,  and  you  mustn't;  we  know  she 
means  well,  and  we  just  let  it  pass  for  what  it 's  worth." 

"Yes;  you  are  young  ladies,  and  I  am  only  a  poor 
woman,  and  it  comes  hard  on  me.  She  's  been  round  iook- 
ing  into  every  crack  and  corner,  and  picked  up  those  old 
cabbage  leaves,  and  talked  to  me  about  keeping  a  cellar  that 
would  give  you  all  a  fever  —  it's  too  bad.  You  know 
yesterday  I  hurried  and  cut  up  that  cabbage  to  help  make 
out  the  dinner  when  those  gentlemen  came  in  and  we  had 


50  WE  AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

only  the  cold  mutton,  and  I  was  going  to  clear  them  away 
this  very  morning." 

"I  know  it,  Mary;  and  you  do  the  impossible  for  us  all 
twenty  times  a  day,  if  you  did  drop  cabbage  leaves  once; 
and  Aunt  Maria  has  no  business  to  be  poking  about  my 
house  and  prying  into  our  management;  but,  you  see, 
Mary,  she  's  my  aunt,  and  I  can't  quarrel  with  her.  I  'm 
sorry,  but  we  must  just  bear  it  as  well  as  we  can  —  now 
promise  not  to  mind  it  —  for  my  sake. " 

"Well,  for  your  sake,  Miss  Eva,"  said  Mary,  wiping 
her  eyes. 

"You  know  we  all  think  you  are  a  perfect  jewel,  Mary, 
and  couldn't  get  along  a  minute  without  you.  As  to  Aunt 
Maria,  she  's  old,  and  set  in  her  way,  and  the  best  way  is 
not  to  mind  her." 

And  Mary  was  consoled,  and  went  on  her  way  with 
courage,  and  with  about  as  much  charity  for  Mrs.  Wouver- 
mans  as  an  average  good  Christian  under  equal  provoca 
tion. 

Eva  went  on  singing  and  making  up  her  vases,  and  car 
ried  them  into  the  parlor,  and  was  absorbed  in  managing 
their  respective  positions  when  Aunt  Maria  came  down 
from  her  tour  in  the  chambers. 

"Seems  to  me,  Eva,  that  your  hired  girl's  room  is  fur 
nished  up  for  a  princess,"  she  began,  after  the-  morning 
greetings  had  been  exchanged. 

"What,  Mary's?  Well,  Mary  has  a  great  deal  of  neat 
ness  and  taste,  and  always  took  particular  pride  in  her 
room  when  she  lived  at  mamma's,  and  so  I  have  arranged 
hers  with  special  care.  Harry  got  her  those  pictures  of 
the  Madonna  and  infant  Jesus,  and  I  gave  the  benitier  for 
holy  water,  over  her  bed.  We  matted  the  floor  nicely, 
and  I  made  that  toilet-table,  and  draped  her  looking-glass 
out  of  an  old  muslin  dress  of  mine.  The  pleasure  Mary 
takes  in  it  all  makes  it  really  worth  while  to  gratify  her." 


A   TEMPEST   IN   A   TEAPOT  51 

"I  never  pet  servants,"  said  Mrs.  Wouvermans  briefly. 
"Depend  on  it,  Eva,  when  you  've  lived  as  long  as  I  have, 
you  '11  find  it  is  n't  the  way.  It  makes  them  presumptuous 
and  exacting.  Why,  at  first  when  I  blundered  into  Mary's 
room,  I  thought  it  must  be  yours  —  it  had  such  an  air. " 

"Well,  as  to  the  air,  it 's  mostly  due  to  Mary's  perfect 
neatness  and  carefulness.  I  'm  sorry  to  say  you  would  n't 
always  find  my  room  as  trimly  arranged  as  hers,  for  I  am 
a  sad  hand  to  throw  things  about  when  I  am  in  a  hurry. 
I  love  order,  but  I  like  somebody  else  to  keep  it." 

"I'm  afraid,"  said  Aunt  Maria,  returning  with  persis 
tence  to  her  subject,  "that  you  are  beginning  wrong  with 
Mary,  and  you  '11  have  trouble  in  the  end.  Now  I  saw 
she  had  white  sugar  in  the  kitchen  sugar-bowl,  and  there 
was  the  tea-caddy  for  her  to  go  to.  It 's  abominable  to 
have  servants  feel  that  they  must  use  such  tea  as  we  do." 

"  Oh,  well,  aunty,  you  know  Mary  has  been  in  the  fam 
ily  so  long  I  don't  feel  as  if  she  were  a  servant;  she  seems 
like  a  friend,  and  I  treat  her  like  one.  I  believe  Mary 
really  loves  us." 

"It  don't  do  to  mix  sentiment  and  business,"  said  Aunt 
Maria,  with  sententious  emphasis.  "I  never  do.  I  don't 
want  my  servants  to  love  me  —  that  is  not  what  I  have 
them  for.  I  want  them  to  do  my  work,  and  take  their 
wages.  They  understand  that  there  are  to  be  no  favors  — 
everything  is  specifically  set  down  in  the  bargain  I  make 
with  them;  their  work  is  all  marked  out.  I  never  talk 
with  them,  or  encourage  them  to  talk  to  me,  and  that  is 
the  way  we  get  along." 

"Dear  me,  Aunt  Maria,  that  may  be  all  very  well  for 
such  an  energetic,  capable  housekeeper  as  you  are,  who 
always  know  exactly  how  to  manage,  but  such  a  poor  little 
thing  as  I  am  can't  set  up  in  that  way.  Now  I  think  it 's 
a  great  mercy  and  favor  to  have  a  trained  girl  that  knows 
more  about  how  to  get  on  than  I  do,  and  that  is  fond  of 


52  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

me.  Why,  I  know  rich  people  that  would  be  only  too 
glad  to  give  Mary  double  what  we  give,  just  to  have  some 
body  to  depend  on." 

"But,  Eva,  child,  you're  beginning  wrong  —  you  ought 
not  to  leave  things  to  Mary  as  you  do.  You  ought  to 
attend  to  everything  yourself.  I  always  do." 

"But  you  see,  aunty,  the  case  is  very  different  with  you 
and  me.  You  are  so  very  capable  and  smart,  and  know  so 
exactly  how  everything  ought  to  be  done,  you  can  make 
your  own  terms  with  everybody.  And,  now  I  think  of  it, 
how  lucky  that  you  came  in !  I  want  you  to  give  me  your 
judgment  as  to  two  pieces  of  linen  that  I  've  just  had  sent 
in.  You  know,  aunty,  I  am  such  a  perfect  ignoramus 
about  these  matters." 

And  Eva  tripped  upstairs,  congratulating  herself  on 
turning  the  subject,  and  putting  her  aunt's  busy  advising 
faculties  to  some  harmless  and  innocent  use.  So,  when 
she  came  down  with  her  two  pieces  of  linen,  Aunt  Maria 
tested  and  pulled  them  this  way  and  that,  in  the  approved 
style  of  a  domestic  expert,  and  gave  judgment  at  last  with 
an  authoritative  air. 

"  This  is  the  best,  Eva  —  you  see  it  has  a  round  thread 
and  very  little  dressing." 

"And  why  is  the  round  thread  the  best,  aunty? " 

"  Oh,  because  it  always  is  —  everybody  knows  that, 
child;  all  good  judges  will  tell  you  to  buy  the  round 
threaded  linen,  that's  perfectly  well  understood." 

Eva  did  not  pursue  the  inquiry  farther,  and  we  must  all 
confess  that  Mrs.  Wouvermans*  reply  was  about  as  satis 
factory  as  those  one  gets  to  most  philosophical  inquiries  as 
to  why  and  wherefore.  If  our  reader  doubts  that,  let  him 
listen  to  the  course  of  modern  arguments  on  some  of  the 
most  profound  problems;  so  far  as  can  be  seen,  they  con 
sist  of  inflections  of  Aunt  Maria's  style  of  statement  —  as, 
"Oh,  of  course  everybody  knows  that,  now;"  or,  nega- 


A   TEMPEST   IN   A   TEAPOT  53 

tively,  "Oh,  nobody  believes  that,  nowadays."  Surely, 
a  mode  of  argument  which  very  wise  persons  apply  fear 
lessly  to  subjects  like  death,  judgment,  and  eternity,  may 
answer  for  a  piece  of  linen. 

"  Oh,  by  the  bye,  Eva,  I  see  you  have  cards  there  for 
Mrs.  Wat  Sydney's  receptions  this  winter,"  said  Aunt 
Maria,  turning  her  attention  to  the  card  plate.  "  They  are 
going  to  be  very  brilliant,  I  'm  told.  They  say  nothing 
like  their  new  house  is  to  be  seen  in  this  country." 

"Yes,"  said  Eva,  "Sophie  has  been  down  here  urging 
me  to  come  up  and  see  her  rooms,  and  says  they  depend 
on  me  for  their  receptions,  and  I  'in  going  up  some  day  to 
lunch  with  her,  in  a  quiet  way;  but  Harry  and  I  have 
about  made  up  our  minds  that  we  sha'n't  go  to  parties. 
You  know,  aunty,  we  are  going  in  for  economy,  and  this 
sort  of  thing  costs  so  much." 

"  But,  bless  your  soul,  child,  what  is  money  for  1  "  said 
Aunt  Maria  innocently.  "If  you  have  anything  you 
ought  to  improve  your  advantages  of  getting  on  in  society. 
It 's  important  to  Harry  in  his  profession  to  be  seen  and 
heard  of,  and  to  push  his  way  among  the  notables,  and, 
with  due  care  and  thought  and  economy,  a  person  with 
your  air  and  style,  and  your  taste,  can  appear  as  well  as 
anybody.  I  came  down  here,  among  other  things,  to  look 
over  your  dresses,  and  see  what  can  be  done  with  them." 

"Oh,  thank  you  a  thousand  times,  aunty  dear,  but  what 
do  you  think  all  my  little  wedding  finery  would  do  for  me 
in  an  assemblage  of  Worth's  spick-and-span  new  toilets? 
In  our  own  little  social  circles  I  am  quite  a  leader  of  the 
mode,  but  I  should  look  like  an  old  last  night's  bouquet 
among  all  their  fresh  finery ! " 

"Well,  now,  Eva,  child,  you  talk  of  economy  and  all 
that,  and  then  go  spending  on  knickknacks  and  mere  fan 
cies  what  would  enable  you  to  make  a  very  creditable  figure 
in  society." 


54  WE  AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

"Really,  aunty,  is  it  possible  now,  when  I  thought  we 
were  being  so  prudent  1 " 

"Well,  there  's  your  wood  fire,  for  instance;  very  cheer 
ful,  I  admit,  but  it 's  a  downright  piece  of  extravagance. 
I  know  that  the  very  richest  and  most  elegant  people,  that 
have  everything  they  can  think  of,  have  fallen  back  on  the 
fancy  of  having  open  wood  fires  in  their  parlors,  just  for 
a  sort  of  ornament  to  their  rooms,  but  you  don't  really 
need  it  —  your  furnace  keeps  you  warm  enough. " 

"  But,  aunty,  it  looks  so  bright  and  cheerful,  and  Harry 
is  so  fond  of  it!  We  only  have  it  evenings,  when  he 
comes  home  tired,  and  he  says  the  very  sight  of  it  rests 
him." 

"  There  you  go,  now,  Eva  —  with  wood  at  fifteen  dollars 
a  cord !  —  going  in  for  a  mere  luxury  just  because  it  pleases 
your  fancy,  and  you  can't  go  into  society  because  it 's  so 
expensive.  Eva,  child,  that 's  just  like  you.  And  there 
are  twenty  other  little  things  that  I  see  about  here,"  said 
Aunt  Maria,  glancing  round,  "pretty  enough,  but  each 
costs  a  little.  There,  for  instance,  those  cut  flowers  in  the 
vases  cost  something." 

"But,  aunty,  I  got  them  of  a  poor  little  man  just  setting 
up  a  greenhouse,  and  Harry  and  I  have  made  up  our 
minds  that  it 's  our  duty  to  patronize  him.  I  'm  going  up 
to  Sophie's  to  get  her  to  take  flowers  for  her  parties  of 
him." 

"  It 's  well  enough  to  get  Sophie  to  do  it,  but  you  ought  n't 
to  afford  it,"  said  Aunt  Maria;  "nor  need  you  buy  a  new 
matting  and  pictures  for  your  servant's  room." 

"Oh,  aunty,  mattings  are  so  cheap;  and  those  pictures 
didn't  cost  much,  and  they  make  Mary  so  happy! " 

"Oh,  she'd  be  happy  enough  anyway.  You  ought  to 
look  out  a  little  for  yourself,  child." 

"Well,  I  do.  Now,  just  look  at  the  expense  of  going 
to  parties.  To  begin  with,  it  annihilates  all  your  dresses 


A   TEMPEST   IN   A   TEAPOT  55 

at  one  fell  swoop.  If  I  make  up  my  mind,  for  instance, 
not  to  go  to  parties  this  winter,  I  have  dresses  enough  and 
pretty  enough  for  all  my  occasions.  The  minute  I  decide 
I  must  go,  I  have  nothing,  absolutely  nothing,  to  wear. 
There  must  be  an  immediate  outlay.  A  hundred  dollars 
would  be  a  small  estimate  for  all  the  additions  necessary 
to  make  me  appear  with  credit.  Even  if  I  take  my  old 
dresses  as  the  foundation,  and  use  my  unparalleled  good 
taste,  there  are  trimmings,  and  dressmaker's  bills,  and 
gloves,  and  slippers,  and  fifty  things;  and  then  a  carriage 
for  the  evening,  at  five  dollars  a  night,  and  all  for  what  1 
What  does  anybody  get  at  a  great  buzzing  party,  to  pay 
for  all  this  1  Then  Harry  has  to  use  all  his  time,  and  all 
his  nerves,  and  all  his  strength  on  his  work.  He  is  driven 
hard  all  the  time  with  writing,  making  up  the  paper,  and 
overseeing  at  the  office.  And  you  know  parties  don't  begin 
till  near  ten  o'clock,  and  if  he  is  out  till  twelve  he  doesn't 
rest  well,  nor  I  either,  —  it 's  just  so  much  taken  out  of  our 
life, — and  we  don't  either  of  us  enjoy  it.  Now,  why 
should  we  put  out  our  wood  fire  that  we  do  enjoy,  and 
scrimp  in  our  flowers,  and  scrimp  in  our  home  comforts, 
and  in  our  servant's  comforts,  just  to  get  what  we  don't 
want  after  all?" 

"Oh,  well,  I  suppose  you  are  like  other  new  married 
folks,  you  want  to  play  Darby  and  Joan  in  your  chimney- 
corner,"  said  Aunt  Maria,  "but,  for  all  that,  I  think  there 
are  duties  to  society.  One  cannot  go  out  of  the  world, 
you  know;  it  don't  do,  Eva." 

"I  don't  know  about  that,"  said  Eva.  "We  are  going 
to  try  it." 

"What!  living  without  society?" 

"Oh,  as  to  that,  we  shall  see  our  friends  other  ways. 
I  can  see  Sophie  a  great  deal  better  in  a  quiet  morning  call 
than  an  evening  reception;  for  the  fact  is,  whoever  else 
you  see  at  a  party  you  don't  see  your  hostess  —  she  hasn't 


56  WE  AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

a  word  for  you.  Then,  I'm  going  to  have  an  evening 
here." 

"  You  an  evening  1  " 

"Yes;  why  not?  See  if  I  don't,  and  we'll  have  good 
times,  too." 

"  Why,  whom  do  you  propose  to  invite  ?  " 

"Oh,  all  our  folks,  and  Bolton  and  Jim  Fellows;  then 
there  are  a  good  many  interesting,  intelligent  men  that 
write  for  the  magazine,  and,  besides,  our  acquaintances  on 
this  street." 

"In  this  street?  Why,  there  isn't  a  creature  here," 
said  Aunt  Maria. 

"Yes,  there  are  those  old  ladies  across  the  way." 

"What!  old  Miss  Dorcas  Vanderheyden  and  that  Mrs. 
Benthusen?  Well,  they  belong  to  an  ancient  New  York 
family,  to  be  sure;  but  they  are  old  as  Methuselah." 

"  So  much  the  better,  aunty.  Old  things,  you  know, 
are  all  the  rage  just  now;  and  then  there's  my  little 
Quaker  neighbor." 

"Why,  how  odd!  They  are  nice  enough,  I  suppose, 
and  well  enough  to  have  for  neighbors;  but  he  's  nothing 
but  a  watchmaker.  He  actually  works  for  Tiffany !  " 

"Yes;  but  he  is  a  very  modest,  intelligent  young  man, 
and  very  well  informed  on  certain  subjects.  Harry  says 
he  has  learned  a  great  deal  from  him." 

"Well,  well,  child,  I  suppose  you  must  take  your  own 
way,"  said  Aunt  Maria. 

"I  suppose  we  must,"  said  Eva,  shaking  her  head  with 
much  gravity.  "You  see,  aunty,  dear,  a  wife  must  accom 
modate  herself  to  her  husband,  and  if  Harry  thinks  this  is 
the  best  way,  you  know  —  and  he  does  think  so,  very 
strongly  —  and  isn't  it  lucky  that  I  think  just  as  he  does? 
You  would  n't  have  me  fall  in  with  those  strong-minded 
Bloomer  women,  would  you,  and  sail  the  ship  on  my  own 
account,  independently  of  my  husband  ?  " 


A   TEMPEST   IN   A   TEAPOT  57 

Now,  the  merest  allusion  to  modern  strong-mindedness 
in  woman  was  to  Aunt  Maria  like  a  red  rag  to  a  bull;  it 
aroused  all  her  combativeness. 

"No,  I  am  sure  I  wouldn't,"  she  said,  with  emphasis. 
"If  there  's  anything,  Eva,  where  I  see  the  use  of  all  my 
instructions  to  you,  it  is  the  good  sense  with  which  you 
resist  all  such  new-fangled,  abominable  notions  about  the 
rights  and  sphere  of  women.  No;  I've  always  said  that 
the  head  of  the  woman  is  the  man;  and  it 's  a  wife's  duty 
to  live  to  please  her  husband.  She  may  try  to  influence 
him,  —  she  ought  to  do  that,  —  but  she  never  ought  to  do 
it  openly.  I  never  used  to  oppose  Mr.  Wouvermaris.  I 
was  always  careful  to  let  him  suppose  he  was  having  his 
own  way;  but  I  generally  managed  to  get  mine,77  and 
Aunt  Maria  plumed  herself  and  nodded  archly,  as  an  aged 
priestess  who  is  communicating  to  a  young  neophyte  secrets 
of  wisdom. 

In  her  own  private  mind  Eva  thought  this  the  most 
terrible  sort  of  hypocrisy;  but  her  aunt  was  so  settled  and 
contented  in  all  her  own  practical  views  that  there  was 
not  the  least  use  in  arguing  the  case.  However,  she 
couldn't  help  saying  innocently:  — 

"But,  aunty,  I  should  be  afraid  sometimes  he  would 
have  found  me  out,  and  then  he  'd  be  angry." 

"Oh  no;  trust  me  for  that,"  said  Aunt  Maria  compla 
cently.  "I  never  managed  so  bunglingly  as  that.  Some 
how  or  other,  he  did  n't  exactly  know  how,  he  found  things 
coming  round  my  way;  but  I  never  opposed  him  openly 
—  I  never^got  his  back  up.  You  see,  Eva,  these  men,  if 
they  do  get  their  backs  up,  are  terrible,  but  any  of  them 
can  be  led  by  the  nose  —  so  I'm  glad  to  find  that  you 
begin  the  right  way.  Now,  there's  your  mother  —  I've 
been  telling  her  this  morning  that  it 's  her  duty  to  make 
your  father  go  back  into  business  and  retrieve  his  fortunes. 
He  's  got  a  good  position,  to  be  sure  —  a  respectable  salary; 


58  WE   AND    OUR   NEIGHBORS 

but  there  's  no  sort  of  reason  why  he  should  n't  die  worth 
his  two  or  three  millions  as  well  as  half  the  other  men  who 
fail,  and  are  up  again  in  two  or  three  years.  But  Nelly 
wants  force.  She  is  no  manager.  If  I  were  your  father's 
wife,  I  should  set  him  on  his  feet  again  pretty  soon. 
Nelly  is  such  a  little  dependent  body.  She  was  saying  this 
morning  how  would  she  ever  have  got  along  with  her  family 
without  me!  But  there  are  some  things  that  even  I  can't 
do  —  nobody  but  a  wife  could,  and  Nelly  isn't  up  to  it." 

"Poor,  dear  little  mamma,"  said  Eva.  "But  are  you 
quite  sure,  Aunt  Maria,  that  her  ways  are  not  better 
adapted  to  papa  than  any  one's  else  could  be?  Papa  is 
very  positive,  though  so  very  quiet.  He  is  devoted  to 
mamma.  Then,  again,  aunty,  there  is  a  good  deal  of  risk 
in  going  into  speculations  and  enterprises  at  papa's  age. 
Of  course,  you  know  I  don't  know  anything  about  business 
or  that  sort  of  thing;  but  it  seems  to  me  like  a  great  sea 
where  you  are  up  on  the  wave  to-day  and  down  to-morrow. 
So  if  papa  really  won't  go  into  these  things,  perhaps  it  Js 
all  for  the  best." 

"But,  Eva,  it  is  so  important  now  for  the  girls,  poor 
things,  just  going  into  society  —  for  you  know  they  can't 
keep  out  of  it  even  if  you  do.  It  will  affect  all  their 
chances  of  settlement  in  life  —  and  that  puts  me  in  mind, 
Eva,  something  or  other  must  be  done  about  Alice  and  Jim 
Fellows.  Everybody  is  saying  if  they  're  not  engaged  they 
ought  to  be." 

"Oh,  aunty,  how  exasperating  the  world  is!  Can't  a 
man  and  woman  have  a  plain  honest  friendship  1  Jim  has 
shown  himself  a  true  friend  to  our  family.  He  came  to 
us  just  in  all  the  confusion  of  the  failure,  and  helped  us 
heart  and  hand  in  the  manliest  way  —  and  we  all  like  him. 
Alice  likes  him,  and  I  don't  wonder  at  it." 

"Well,  are  they  engaged?"  said  Aunt  Maria,  with  an 
air  of  statistical  accuracy. 


A  TEMPEST  IN  A  TEAPOT  59 

"How  should  I  know?  I  never  thought  of  asking. 
I  'm  not  a  police  detective,  and  I  always  think  that  if  my 
friends  have  anything  they  want  me  to  know,  they  '11  tell 
me;  and  if  they  don't  want  nie  to  know,  why -should  I  ask 
them?" 

"But,  Eva,  one  is  responsible  for  one's  relations.  The 
fact  is,  such  an  intimacy  stands  right  in  the  way  of  a  girl's 
having  good  offers  —  it  keeps  other  parties  off.  Now,  I 
tell  you,  as  a  great  secret,  there  is  a  very  fine  man,  im 
mensely  rich,  and  every  way  desirable,  who  is  evidently 
pleased  with  Alice." 

"  Dear  me,  aunty !  how  you  excite  my  curiosity.  Pray 
who  is  it  ?  "  said  Eva. 

"Well,  I  'm  not  at  liberty  to  tell  you  more  particularly; 
but  I  know  he  's  thinking  about  her;  and  this  report  about 
her  and  Jim  would  operate  very  prejudicially.  Now  shall 
I  have  a  talk  with  Alice,  or  will  you  ? " 

"Oh,  aunty  dear,  don't,  for  pity's  sake,  say  a  word  to 
Alice.  Young  girls  are  so  sensitive  about  such  things. 
If  it  must  be  talked  of,  let  me  talk  with  Alice." 

"  I  really  thought,  if  I  had  a  good  chance,  I  'd  say 
something  to  the  young  man  himself,"  said  Aunt  Maria 
reflectively. 

"Oh,  good  heavens!  aunty,  don't  think  of  it.  You 
don't  know  Jim  Fellows." 

"Oh,  you  needn't  be  afraid  of  me,"  said  Aunt  Maria. 
"I  am  a  great  deal  older  and  more  experienced  than  you, 
and  if  I  do  do  anything,  you  may  rest  assured  it  will  be 
in  the  most  discreet  way.  I  've  managed  cases  of  this  kind 
before  you  were  born." 

"But  Jim  is  the  most  peculiar"  — 

"  Oh,  I  know  all  about  him.  Do  you  suppose  I  've 
seen  him  in  and  out  in  the  family  all  this  time  without 
understanding  him  perfectly  1 " 

"  But  I  don't  really  think  that  there  is  the  least  of  any 
thing  serious  between  him  and  Alice." 


60  WE  AND  OUR  NEIGHBORS 

"Very  likely.  He  would  not  be  at  all  the  desirable 
match  for  Alice.  He  has  very  little  property,  and  is  rather 
a  wild,  rattling  fellow;  and  I  don't  like  newspaper  men 
generally. " 

"Oh,  aunty,  that 's  severe  now.      You  forget  Harry." 

"Oh,  well,  your  husband  is  an  exception;  but,  as  a 
general  rule,  I  don't  like  'em  —  unprincipled  lot  I  be 
lieve,"  said  Aunt  Maria,  with  a  decisive  nod  of  her  head. 
"At  any  rate,  Alice  can  do  better,  and  she  ought  to." 

The  ringing  of  the  lunch-bell  interrupted  the  conversa 
tion,  much  to  the  relief  of  Eva,  who  discovered  with  real 
alarm  the  course  her  respected  relative's  thoughts  were 
taking.  Of  old  she  had  learned  that  the  only  result  of 
arguing  a  point  with  her  was  to  make  her  more  set  in  her 
own  way,  and  she  therefore  bent  all  her  forces  of  agreeable- 
ness  to  produce  a  diversion  of  mind  to  other  topics.  On 
the  principle  that  doctors  apply  mustard  to  the  feet  to 
divert  the  too  abundant  blood  from  the  head,  Eva  started 
a  brisk  controversy  with  Aunt  Maria  on  another  topic,  in 
hopes,  by  exhausting  her  energies  there,  to  put  this  out  of 
her  mind.  With  what  success  her  strategy  was  crowned 
it  will  remain  to  be  seen. 


CHAPTER   VI 

THE    SETTLING    OF    THE    WATERS 

IT  will  not  be  doubted  by  those  who  know  the  ways  of 
family  dictators  that  Mrs.  Maria  Wouvermans  left  Eva's 
house  after  her  day's  visit  in  a  state  of  the  most  balmy 
self-satisfaction,  as  one  who  has  done  a  good  day's  work. 

"Well,  I've  been  up  at  Eva's,"  she  said  to  her  sister, 
as  she  looked  in  on  returning,  "and  really  it  was  well  I 
went  in.  That  Mary  of  hers  is  getting  careless  and  negli 
gent,  just  as  all  old  servants  do,  and  I  just  went  over  the 
whole  house,  and  had  a  plain  talk  with  Mary.  She  flew 
up  about  it,  and  was  impertinent,  of  course;  but  I  put  her 
down,  and  I  talked  plainly  to  Eva  about  the  way  she  's 
beginning  with  her  servants.  She  's  just  like  you,  Nelly, 
slack  and  good-natured,  and  needs  somebody  to  keep  her 
up.  I  told  her  the  way  she  is  beginning  —  of  petting 
Mary,  and  fussing  up  her  room  with  carpet  and  pictures, 
and  everything,  just  like  any  other  —  wouldn't  work. 
Servants  must  be  kept  in  their  places." 

Now,  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel  had  a  spirit  of  her  own;  and  the 
off-hand,  matter-of-fact  manner  in  which  her  sister  was 
accustomed  to  speak  of  her  as  no  manager  touched  a  vital 
point.  What  housekeeper  likes  to  have  her  capacity  to 
guide  a  house  assailed?  Is  not  that  the  spot  where  her 
glory  dwells,  if  she  has  any  ?  And  it  is  all  the  more  pro 
voking  when  such  charges  are  thrown  out  in  perfect  good 
nature,  not  as  designed  to  offend,  but  thrown  in  par  paren- 
these,  as  something  everybody  would  acknowledge,  and  too 
evident  to  require  discussion.  While  proceeding  in  the 


62  WE   AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

main  part  of  a  discourse  Mrs.  Wouvermans  was  quite  in 
the  habit  of  these  frank  side  disclosures  of  her  opinion  of 
her  sister's  management,  and  for  the  most  part  they  were 
submitted  to  in  acquiescent  silence,  rather  than  to  provoke 
a  controversy;  but  to  be  called  "slack"  to  her  face  with 
out  protest  or  rejoinder  was  more  than  she  could  bear;  so 
Mrs.  Van  Arsdel  spoke  up  with  spirit :  — 

"Maria,  you  are  always  talking  as  if  I  don't  know  how 
to  manage  servants.  All  I  know  is  that  you  are  always 
changing,  and  I  keep  mine  years  and  years." 

"That's  because  you  let  them  have  their  own  way," 
said  her  sister.  "You  can  keep  servants  if  you  don't  fol 
low  them  up,  and  insist  on  it  that  they  shall  do  their  duty. 
Let  them  run  all  over  you  and  live  like  mistresses,  and  you 
can  keep  them.  For  my  part,  I  like  to  change  —  new 
brooms  always  sweep  clean." 

"Well,  it's  a  different  thing,  Maria  —  you  with  your 
small  family,  and  mine  with  so  many.  I  'd  rather  bear 
anything  than  change." 

"Oh,  well,  yes;  I  suppose  there  's  no  help  for  it,  Nelly. 
Of  course  I  wasn't  blaming  you,  so  don't  fire  up  about  it. 
I  know  you  can't  make  yourself  over,"  said  Aunt  Maria. 
This  was  the  tone  with  which  she  usually  settled  discus 
sions  with  those  who  differed  from  her  on  modes  and  mea 
sures.  After  all,  they  could  not  be  like  her,  so  where  was 
the  use  of  talking  ? 

Aunt  Maria  also  had  the  advantage  in  all  such  encoun 
ters  of  a  confessed  reputation  as  an  excellent  manager. 
Her  house  was  always  elegant,  always  in  order.  She  her 
self  was  gifted  with  a  head  for  details  that  never  failed  to 
keep  in  mind  the  smallest  item,  and  a  wiry,  compact  con 
stitution  that  never  knew  fatigue.  She  held  the  keys  of 
everything  in  her  house,  and  always  turned  every  key  at 
the  right  moment.  She  knew  the  precise  weight,  quan 
tity,  and  quality  of  everything  she  had  in  possession,  where 


THE   SETTLING  OF   THE   WATERS  G3 

it  was,  and  what  it  might  be  used  for;  and,  as  she  said, 
could  go  to  anything  in  her  house  without  a  candle  in  the 
darkest  night.  If  her  servants  did  not  love,  they  feared 
her,  and  had  such  a  sense  of  her  ever  vigilant  inspection 
that  they  never  even  tried  to  evade  her.  For  the  least 
shadow  of  disobedience  she  was  ready  to  send  them  away 
at  a  moment's  warning,  and  then  go  to  the  intelligence 
office  and  enter  her  name  for  another,  and  come  home,  put 
on  apron  and  gloves,  and  manfully  and  thoroughly  sustain 
the  department  till  they  came.  Mrs.  Wouvermans,  there 
fore,  was  celebrated  and  lauded  by  all  her  acquaintances  as 
a  perfect  housekeeper,  and  this  added  sanction  and  terror 
to  her  pronunciamentos  when  she  walked  the  rounds  as  a 
police  inspector  in  the  houses  of  her  relations. 

It  is  rather  amusing  to  a  general  looker-on  in  this  odd 
world  of  ours  to  contrast  the  serene,  cheerful  good  faith 
with  which  these  constitutionally  active  individuals  go 
about  criticising,  and  suggesting,  and  directing  right  and 
left,  with  the  dismay  and  confusion  of  mind  they  leave 
behind  them  wherever  they  operate.  They  are  often  what 
the  world  calls  well-meaning  people,  animated  by  a  most 
benevolent  spirit,  and  have  no  more  intention  of  giving 
offense  than  a  nettle  has  of  stinging.  A  large,  vigorous, 
well-growing  nettle  has  no  consciousness  of  the  stings  it 
leaves  in  the  delicate  hands  that  have  been  in  contact  with 
it;  it  has  simply  acted  out  its  innocent  and  respectable 
nature  as  a  nettle.  But  a  nettle  armed  with  the  power  of 
locomotion  on  an  ambulatory  tour  is  something  the  results 
of  which  may  be  fearful  to  contemplate. 

So,  after  the  departure  of  Aunt  Maria  our  little  house 
keeper,  Eva,  was  left  in  a  state  of  considerable  nervousness 
and  anxiety,  feeling  that  she  had  been  weighed  in  the  bal 
ance  of  perfection  and  found  woefully  wanting.  She  was 
conscious,  to  begin  with,  that  her  characteristic  virtues  as 
a  housekeeper,  if  she  had  any,  were  not  entirely  in  the 


64  WE  -  AND  OUR  NEIGHBORS 

style  of  her  good  relative.  She  was  not  by  nature  statisti 
cal,  nor  given  to  accounts  and  figures.  She  was  not  sharp 
and  keen  in  bargains;  she  was,  she  felt  in  her  inmost, 
trembling  soul,  a  poor  little  mollusk,  without  a  bit  of  a 
shell,  hiding  in  a  cowardly  way  under  a  rock  and  ready  at 
any  time  to  be  eaten  up  by  big  fishes.  She  had  felt  so 
happy  in  her  unlimited  trust  in  Mary,  who  knew  more  than 
she  did  about  housekeeping  —  but  she  had  been  convicted 
by  her  aunt's  cross-questions  of  having  resigned  the  very 
signet-ring  and  sceptre  of  her  house  into  her  hands.  Did 
she  let  Mary  go  all  over  the  house  ?  Did  she  put  away 
the  washing?  Did  Eva  allow  her  to  open  her  drawers? 
Didn't  she  count  her  towels  and  sheets  every  week,  and 
also  her  teaspoons,  and  keep  every  drawer  and  cupboard 
locked?  She  ought  to.  To  all  these  inquiries  Eva  had 
no  satisfactory  response,  and  began  to  doubt  within  herself 
whether  she  had  begun  aright.  With  sensitive,  conscien 
tious  people  there  is  always  a  residuum  of  self-distrust  after 
discussions  of  the  nature  we  have  indicated,  however  vig 
orously  and  skillfully  they  may  have  defended  their  courses 
at  the  time. 

Eva  went  over  and  over  in  her  own  mind  her  self -justifi 
cations —  she  told  herself  that  she  and  her  aunt  were 
essentially  different  people,  incapable  of  understanding  each 
other  sympathetically  or  acting  in  each  other's  ways,  and 
that  the  well-meant,  positive  dicta  of  her  relative  were  to 
be  let  go  for  what  they  were  worth,  and  no  more.  Still, 
she  looked  eagerly  and  anxiously  for  the  return  of  her  hus 
band  that  she  might  reinforce  herself  by  talking  it  over 
with  him.  Hers  was  a  nature  so  transparent  that,  before 
he  had  been  five  minutes  in  the  house,  he  felt  that  some 
thing  had  gone  wrong;  but,  the  dinner-bell  ringing,  he 
retired  at  once  to  make  his  toilet,  and  did  not  open  the 
subject  till  they  were  fairly  seated  at  table. 

"Well,    come    now,   Puss  —  out    with    it!     Why    that 


THE    SETTLING   OF   THE    WATERS  65 

anxious  brow?  What  domestic  catastrophe?  Anything 
gone  wrong  with  the  ivies  ? " 

"Oh  no;  the  ivies  are  all  right,  growing  beautifully  — 
it  isn't  that"  — 

"Well,  then,  what  is  it?  It  seems  that  there  is  some 
thing." 

"Oh,  nothing,  Harry;  only  Aunt  Maria  has  been  spend 
ing  the  day  here." 

Eva  said  this  with  such  a  perplexed  and  woeful  face  that 
Harry  leaned  back  in  his  chair  and  laughed. 

"What  a  blessing  it  is  to  have  relations,"  he  said;  "but 
I  thought,  Eva,  that  you  had  made  up  your  mind  not  to 
care  for  anything  Aunt  Maria  says." 

"Well,  she  has  been  all  over  the  house,  surveying  and 
reviewing  as  if  she  owned  us,  and  she  has  lectured  Mary 
and  got  her  into  hysterics,  and  talked  to  me  till  I  am 
almost  bewildered  —  wondering  at  everything  we  mean  to 
do,  and  wanting  us  to  take* her  ways  and  not  ours." 

"  My  dearest  child,  why  need  you  care  ?  Take  it  as  a 
rain-storm,  when  you  've  been  caught  out  without  your 
umbrella.  That 's  all.  Or  why  can't  you  simply  and 
firmly  tell  her  that  she  must  not  go  over  your  house  or 
direct  your  servants  ?  " 

"Well,  you  see,  that  would  never  do.  She  would  feel 
so  injured  and  abused.  I've  only  just  made  up  and 
brought  things  to  going  smoothly,  and  got  her  pacified 
about  our  marriage.  There  would  be  another  fuss  if  I 
should  talk  that  way.  Aunt  Maria  always  considered  me 
her  girl,  and  maintains  that  she  is  a  sort  of  special  guard 
ian  to  me,  and  I  think  it  very  disagreeable  to  quarrel  with 
your  relations,  and  get  on  unpleasant  terms  with  them." 

"Well,  I  shall  speak  to  her,  Eva,  pretty  decidedly,  if 
you  don't." 

"Oh,  don't,  don't,  Harry!  She'd  never  forgive  you. 
No.  Let  me  manage  her.  I  have  been  managing  her  all 


66  WE  AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

day  to  keep  the  peace,  to  keep  her  satisfied  and  pleased, 
to  let  her  advise  me  to  her  heart's  content  about  things 
where  I  can  take  advice.  Aunt  Maria  is  a  capital  judge 
of  linens  and  cottons,  and  all  sorts  of  household  stuffs,  and 
can  tell  to  a  certainty  just  how  much  of  a  thing  you  'd 
want,  and  the  price  you  ought  to  pay,  and  the  exact  place 
to  get  it;  and  I  have  been  contriving  to  get  her  opinion  on 
a  dozen  points  where  I  mean  to  take  it;  and  I  think  she 
has  left,  on  the  whole,  highly  satisfied  with  her  visit, 
though  in  the  main  I  did  n't  give  in  to  her  a  bit  about  our 
plans. " 

"  Then  why  so  tragic  and  tired  looking  1 " 

"Oh,  well,  after  all,  when  Aunt  Maria  talks,  she  says 
a  great  many  things  that  have  such  a  degree  of  sense  in 
them  that  it  worries  me.  Now,  there  's  a  good  deal  of 
sense  in  what  she  said  about  trusting  too  much  to  servants, 
and  being  too  indulgent.  I  know  mamma's  girls  used  to 
get  spoiled  so  that  they  would  be  perfect  tyrants.  And 
yet  I  cannot  for  the  life  of  me  like  Aunt  Maria's  hard, 
ungracious  way  of  living  with  servants,  as  if  they  were 
machines. " 

"Ah,  well,  Eva,  it's  always  so.  Hard,  worldly  people 
always  have  a  good  deal  of  what  looks  like  practical  sense 
on  their  side,  and  kindness  and  unselfishness  certainly  have 
their  weak  points;  there  's  no  doubt  of  that.  The  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  is  open  to  a  great  deal  of  good  hard  worldly 
criticism,  and  so  is  every  attempt  to  live  up  to  it  practi 
cally  ;  but,  never  mind.  We  all  know  that  •  the  generous 
way  is  the  strong  way,  and  the  best  way  in  the  long  run.'3 

"And  then  you  know,  Harry,  I  haven't  the  least  talent 
for  being  hard  and  sharp,"  said  Eva,  "and  so  I  may  as 
well  take  the  advantages  of  my  sort  of  nature." 

"Certainly  you  may;  people  never  succeed  out  of  their 
own  line." 

"Then  there  's  another  trouble.     I  'in  afraid  Aunt  Maria 


THE   SETTLING  OF  THE  WATERS  67 

is  going  to  interfere  with  Alice,  as  she  tried  to  do  with 
me.  She  said  that  everybody  was  talking  about  her  inti 
macy  with  Jim,  and  that  if  I  didn't  speak  to  Alice  she 
must." 

"Confound  that  woman,"  said  Harry;  "she's  an  un 
mitigated  old  fool!  She's  as  bad  as  a  runaway  steam- 
engine;  somebody  ought  to  seize  and  lock  her  up." 

"Come,  sir,  keep  a  civil  tongue  about  my  relations," 
said  Eva,  laughing. 

"Well,  I  must  let  off  a  little  to  you,  just  to  lower  steam 
to  the  limits  of  Christian  moderation." 

"Alice  isn't  as  fond  of  Aunt  Maria  as  I  am,  and  has  a 
high  spirit  of  her  own,  and  I  'm  afraid  it  will  make  a  terri 
ble  scene  if  Aunt  Maria  attacks  her,  so  I  suppose  I  must 
talk  to  her  myself ;  but  what  do  you  think  of  Jim,  Harry  1 
Is  there  anything  in  it,  on  his  part  ? " 

"How  can  I  say?  you  know  just  as  much  as  I  do  and 
no  more,  and  you  are  a  better  judge  of  human  nature  than 
I  am." 

"Well,  would  you  like  it  to  have  Alice  take  Jim  — 
supposing  there  were  anything  ?  " 

"Why,  yes,  very  well,  if  she  wants  him." 

"  But  Jim  is  such  a  volatile  creature  —  would  you  want 
to  trust  him  1 " 

"He  is  constant  in  his  affections,  which  is  the  main 
thing.  I  'ni  sure  his  conduct  when  your  father  failed 
showed  that;  and  a  sensible,  dignified  woman  like  Alice 
might  make  a  man  of  him." 

"It's  odd,"  said  Eva,  "that  Alice,  who  is  so  prudent, 
and  has  such  a  high  sense  of  propriety,  seems  so  very  in 
dulgent  to  Jim.  Xone  of  his  escapades  seem  to  offend 
her." 

"It's  the  doctrine  of  counterparts,"  said  Harry;  "the 
steady  sensible  nature  admires  the  brilliancy  and  variety 
of  the  volatile  one." 


68  WE  AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

"For  my  part,"  said  Eva,  "I  can't  conceive  of  Jim's 
saying  anything  in  serious  earnest.  The'  very  idea  of  his 
being  sentimental  seems  funny  —  and  how  can  anybody  be 
in  love  without  being  sentimental  ?  " 

"There  are  diversities  of  operation,"  said  Harry.  "Jim 
must  make  love  in  his  own  way,  and  it  will  probably  be 
an  original  one." 

"But,  really  now,  do  you  know,"  persisted  Eva,  "I 
think  Alice  might  be  mated  with  a  man  of  much  higher 
class  than  Jim.  He  is  amiable,  and  bright,  and  funny, 
and  agreeable.  Yet  I  don't  deny  but  Alice  might  do  bet 
ter." 

"So  she  might,  but  the  perversity  of  fate  is  that  the 
superior  man  isn't  around,  and  Jim  is;  and,  ten  to  one,  if 
the  superior  man  were  in  the  field,  Alice  would  be  perverse 
enough  to  choose  Jim.  And,  after  all,  you  must  confess, 
give  Jim  Fellows  a  fortune  of  a  million  or  two,  a  place 
in  Newport,  and  another  on  the  North  River,  and  even 
you  would  call  it  a  brilliant  match,  and  think  it  a  fortunate 
thing  for  Alice." 

"Oh,  dear  me,  Harry,  that 's  the  truth,  to  be  sure.  Am 
I  so  worldly  1 " 

"No;  but  ideal  heroes  are  not  plentiful,  and  there  are 
few  gems  that  don't  need  rich  setting.  The  first  questions 
as  to  a  man  are,  is  he  safe,  has  he  no  bad  habits,  is  he 
kind  and  affectionate  in  his  disposition  and  capable  of  con 
stant  affection?  and,  secondly,  does  the  woman  feel  that 
sort  of  love  that  makes  her  prefer  him  even  to  men  that 
are  quite  superior  1  Now,  whether  Alice  feels  in  that  way 
toward  Jim  is  what  remains  to  be  seen.  I  'm  sure  I  can't 
tell.  Neither  can  I  tell  whether  Jim  has  any  serious  in 
tentions  in  regard  to  her.  If  they  were  only  let  alone, 
and  not  watched  and  interfered  with,  I  've  no  doubt  the 
thing  would  adjust  itself  in  the  natural  course  of  things. 

"But  see  here,  I  must  be  going  to  my  club;  and,  now  I 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE   WATERS  69 

think  of  it,  I  've  brought  some  Paris  letters  from  the  girls 
for  you,  to  pass  the  evening  with." 

"You  have?  Letters  from  Ida  and  Caroline?  You 
naughty  creature,  why  didn't  you  give  them  to  me  be 
fore?" 

"Well,  your  grave  face  when  I  first  came  in  put  every 
thing  else  out  of  my  head;  and  then  came  on  all  this  talk; 
but  it 's  just  as  well,  you  '11  have  them  to  read  while  I  'm 
gone." 

"Don't  stay  late,  Harry." 

"No;  you  may  be  sure  I  've  no  temptation.  I  'd  much 
rather  be  here  with  you  watching  our  own  backlog.  But 
then  I  shall  see  several  fellows  about  articles  for  the  maga 
zine,  and  get  all  the  late  news,  and,  in  short,  take  an  ob 
servation  of  our  latitude  and  longitude ;  so,  au  revoir  !  " 


CHAPTER  VII 

LETTERS    AND    AIR-CASTLES 

AFTER  Harry  went  out  Eva  arranged  the  fire,  dropped 
the  curtains  over  the  window,  drew  up  an  easy-chair  into 
a  warm  corner  under  the  gaslight,  and  began  looking  over 
the  outside  of  her  Parisian  letters  with  that  sort  of  luxu 
rious  enjoyment  of  delay  with  which  one  examines  the 
postmarks  and  direction  of  letters  that  are  valued  as  a 
great  acquisition.  There  was  one  from  her  sister  Ida  and 
one  from  Harry's  Cousin  Caroline.  Ida's  was  opened  first. 
It  was  dated  from  a  boarding-house  in  the  E,ue  de  Clichy, 
giving  a  sort  of  journalized  view  of  their  studies,  their 
medical  instructors,  their  walks  and  duties  in  the  hospital, 
all  told  with  an  evident  and  vigorous  sense  of  enjoyment. 
Eva  felt  throughout  what  a  strong,  cheerful,  self -sustained 
being  her  sister  was,  and  how  fit  it  was  that  a  person  so 
sufficient  to  herself,  so  equable,  so  healthfully  balanced 
and  poised  in  all  her  mental  and  physical  conformation, 
should  have  undertaken  the  pioneer  work  of  opening  a  new 
profession  for  women.  "I  never  could  do  as  she  does, 
in  the  world,"  was  her  mental  comment,  "but  I  am  thank 
ful  that  she  can."  And  then  she  cut  the  envelope  of  Caro 
line's  letter. 

To  a  certain  extent  there  were  the  same  details  in  it  — 
Caroline  was  evidently  associated  in  the  same  studies,  the 
same  plans,  but  there  was  missing  in  the  letter  the  profes 
sional  enthusiasm,  the  firmness,  the  self-poise,  and  calm 
clearness.  There  were  more  bursts  of  feeling  on  the  pic 
tures  in  the  Louvre  than  on  scientific  discoveries;  more 


LETTERS  AND  AIR-CASTLES  71 

sensibility  to  the  various  aesthetic  wonders  which  Paris 
opens  to  an  uninitiated  guest  than  to  the  treasures  of  anat 
omy  and  surgery.  With  the  letter  were  sent  two  or  three 
poems,  contributions  to  the  magazine  —  poems  full  of  color 
and  life,  of  a  subdued  fire,  but  with  that  undertone  of 
sadness  which  is  so  common  in  all  female  poets.  A  por 
tion  of  the  letter  may  explain  this :  — 

You  were  right,  my  dear  Eva,  in  saying,  in  our  last 
interview,  that  it  did  not  seem  to  you  that  I  had  the  kind 
of  character  that  was  adapted  to  the  profession  I  have 
chosen.  I  don't  think  I  have.  I  am  more  certain  of  it 
from  comparing  myself  from  day  to  day  with  Ida,  who  cer 
tainly  is  born  and  made  for  it,  if  ever  a  woman  was.  My 
choice  of  it  has  been  simply  and  only  for  the  reason  that 
I  must  choose  something  as  a  means  of  self-support,  and 
more  than  that,  as  a  refuge  from  morbid  distresses  of  mind 
which  made  the  still  monotony  of  my  New  England  coun 
try  life  intolerable  to  me.  This  course  presented  itself  to 
me  as  something  feasible.  I  thought  it,  too,  a  good  and 
worthy  career  —  one  in  which  one  might  do  one's  share  of 
good  for  the  world.  But,  Eva,  I  can  feel  that  there  is 
one  essential  difference  between  Ida  and  myself:  she  is 
peculiarly  self-sustained  and  sufficient  to  herself,  and  I  am 
just  the  reverse.  I  am  full  of  vague  unrest;  I  am  chased 
by  seasons  of  high  excitement,  alternating  with  deadly 
languor.  Ida  has  hard  work  to  know  what  to  do  with  me. 
You  were  right  in  supposing,  as  you  intimate  in  your  let 
ter,  that  a  certain  common  friend  has  something  to  do  with 
this  unrest,  but  you  cannot,  unless  you  know  my  whole 
history,  know  how  much.  There  was  a  time  when  he  and 
I  were  all  the  world  to  each  other  —  when  shall  I  ever 
forget  that  time !  I  was  but  seventeen ;  a  young  girl,  so 
ignorant  of  life !  I  never  had  seen  one  like  him ;  he  was 
a  whole  new  revelation  to  me;  he  woke  up  everything 


72  WE  AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

there  was  in  me,  never  to  go  to  sleep  again;  and  then  to 
think  of  having  all  this  tide  and  current  of  feeling  checked 

—  frozen.      My  father  overwhelmed  him  with  accusations ; 
every   baseness   was    laid    to    his    charge.      I   was   woman 
enough  to  have  stood  for  him  against  the  world  if  he  had 
come  to  me.      I  would  have  left  all  and  gone  to  the  ends 
of  the  earth  with  him  if  he  had  asked  me,  but  he  did  not. 
There  was  only  one  farewell,  self-accusing  letter,  and  even 
that  fell  into  my  father's  hands  and  never  came  to  me  till 
after   his   death.      For   years   I   thought   myself  wantonly 
trifled  with  by  a  man  of  whose  attentions  I  ought  to  be 
ashamed.      I  was  indignant   at  myself  for  the  love   that 
might  have  been  my  glory,  for  it  is  my  solemn  belief  that 
if  we  had  been  let  alone  he  would  have  been  saved  all  those 
wretched  falls,   those  blind  struggles  that  have  marred  a 
life  whose  purpose  is  yet  so  noble. 

When  the  fates  brought  us  together  again  in  New 
York,  I  saw  at  a  glance  that  whatever  may  have  been  the 
proud,  morbid  conscientiousness  that  dictated  his  long 
silence,  he  loved  me  still ;  —  a  woman  knows  that  by  an 
unmistakable  instinct.  She  can  feel  the  reality  through  all 
disguises.  I  know  that  man  loves  me,  and  yet  he  does 
not  now  in  word  or  deed  make  the  least  profession  beyond 
the  boundaries  of  friendship.  He  is  my  friend;  with 
entire  devotion  he  is  willing  to  spend  and  be  spent  for  me 

—  but  he  will  accept  nothing  from  me.     I,  who  would  give 
my  life  to  him  willingly  —  I  must  do  nothing  for  him ! 

Well,  it  ;s  no  use  writing.  You  see  now  that  I  am  a 
very  unworthy  disciple  of  your  sister.  She  is  so  calm  and 
philosophical  that  I  cannot  tell  her  all  this;  but  you,  dear 
little  Eva,  you  know  the  heart  of  woman,  and  you  have  a 
magic  key  which  unlocks  everybody's  heart  in  confidence 
to  you.  I  seem  to  see  you,  in  fancy,  with  good  Cousin 
Harry,  sitting  cosily  in  your  chimney-corner;  your  ivies 
and  nasturtiums  growing  round  your  sunny  windows,  and 


LETTERS  AND  AIR-CASTLES  73 

an  everlasting  summer  in  your  pretty  parlors,  while  the 
December  winds  whistle  without.  Such  a  life  as  you  two 
lead,  such  a  home  as  your  home,  is  worth  a  thousand 
"  careers  "  that  dazzle  ambition.  Send  us  more  letters, 
journals,  of  all  your  pretty,  lovely  home  life,  and  let  me 
warm  myself  in  the  glow  of  your  fireside. 

Your  cousin,          CARRY. 

Eva  finished  this  letter,  and  then  folding  it  up  sat  with 
it  in  her  lap,  gazing  into  the  fire,  and  pondering  its  con 
tents.  If  the  truth  must  be  told,  she  was  revolving  in  her 
young,  busy  brain  a  scheme  for  restoring  Caroline  to  her 
lover,  and  setting  them  up  comfortably  at  housekeeping  on 
a  contiguous  street,  where  she  had  seen  a  house  to  let.  In 
five  minutes  she  had  gone  through  the  whole  programme  — 
seen  the  bride  at  the  altar,  engaged  the  house,  bought  the 
furniture,  and  had  before  her  a  vision  of  parlors,  of  snug 
geries  and  cosy  nooks,  where  Caroline  was  to  preside,  and 
where  Bolton  was  to  lounge  at  his  ease,  while  she  and 
Caroline  compared  housekeeping  accounts.  Happy  young 
wives  develop  an  aptitude  for  match-making  as  naturally  as 
flowers  spring  in  a  meadow,  and  Eva  was  losing  herself  in 
this  vision  of  Alnaschar, -when  a  loud,  imperative,  sharp 
bark  of  a  dog  at  the  front  door  of  the  house  called  her 
back  to  life  and  the  world. 

Now  there  are  as  many  varieties  to  dog-barks  as  to 
man-talks.  There  is  the  common  bow-wow,  which  means 
nothing,  only  that  it  is  a  dog  speaking ;  there  is  the  tumul 
tuous  angry  bark,  which  means  attack ;  the  conversational 
bark,  which,  of  a  moonlight  night,  means  gossip;  and  the 
imperative  staccato  bark  which  means  immediate  business. 
The  bark  at  the  front  door  was  of  this  kind:  it  was  loud 
and  sharp,  and  with  a  sort  of  indignant  imperativeness  about 
it,  as  of  one  accustomed  to  be  attended  to  immediately. 

Eva  flew  to  the  front  door  and  opened  it,  and  there  sat 


74  WE  AND  OUR  NEIGHBORS 

Jack,  the  spoiled  darling  of  Miss  Dorcas  Vanderheyden  and 
her  sister,  over  the  way. 

"Why,  Jacky!  where  did  you  come  from?"  said  Eva. 
Jacky  sat  up  on  his  haunches  and  waved  his  forepaws  in 
a  vigorous  manner,  as  was  his  way  when  he  desired  to  be 
specially  ingratiating. 

Eva  seized  him  in  her  arms  and  carried  him  into  the 
parlor,  thinking  that  as  he  had  accidentally  been  shut  out 
for  the  night  she  would  domesticate  him  for  a  while,  and 
return  him  to  his  owners  on  the  morrow.  So  she  placed 
him  on  the  ottoman  in  the  corner  and  attempted  to  caress 
him,  but  evidently  that  was  not  the  purpose  he  had  in 
view.  He  sprang  down,  ran  to  the  door  and  snuffed,  and 
to  the  front  windows  and  barked  imperiously. 

"Why,  Jack,  what  do  you  want?  " 

He  sprang  into  a  chair  and  barked  out  at  the  Vander 
heyden  house. 

Eva  looked  at  the  mantel-clock  —  it  wanted  a  few  min 
utes  of  ten  —  without,  it  was  a  bright  moonlight  night. 

"I  '11  run  across  with  him,  and  see  what  it  is,"  she  said. 
She  was  young  enough  to  enjoy  something  like  an  adven 
ture.  She  opened  the  front  door  and  Jack  rushed  out, 
and  then  stopped  to  see  if  she  would  follow ;  as  she  stood 
a  moment  he  laid  hold  on  the  skirt  of  her  dress,  as  if  to 
pull  her  along. 

"Well,  Jacky,  I'll  go,"  said  Eva.  Thereat  the  crea 
ture  bounded  across  the  street  and  up  the  steps  of  the  oppo 
site  house,  where  he  stood  waiting.  She  went  up  and  rang 
the  door-bell,  which  appeared  to  be  what  he  wanted,  as  he 
sat  down  quite  contented  on  the  door-step. 

Nobody  came.  Eva  looked  up  and  down  the  street. 
"Jacky,  we  shall  have  to  go  back,  they  are  all  asleep," 
she  said.  But  Jacky  barked  contradiction,  sprang  nearer 
to  the  door,  and  insisted  on  being  let  in. 

"Well,  if  you  say  so,  Jacky,  I  must  ring  again,"  she 


LETTERS  AND  AIR-CASTLES  75 

said,  and  with  that  she  pulled  the  door-bell  louder,  and 
Jack  barked  with  all  his  might,  and  the  two  succeeded 
after  a  few  moments  in  causing  a  perceptible  stir  within. 

Slowly  the  door  unclosed,  and  a  vision  of  Miss  Dorcas 
in  an  old-fashioned  broad-frilled  nightcap  peeped  out.  She 
was  attired  in  a  black  waterproof  cloak,  donned  hastily  over 
her  night  gear. 

"  Oh,  Jack,  you  naughty  boy ! "  she  exclaimed,  stooping 
eagerly  to  the  prodigal,  who  sprang  tumultuously  into  her 
arms  and  began  licking  her  face. 

"I'm  so  much  obliged  to  you,  Mrs.  Henderson,"  she 
said  to  Eva.  "We  went  down  in  the  omnibus  this  after 
noon,  and  we  suddenly  missed  him,  the  naughty  fellow," 
she  said,  endeavoring  to  throw  severity  into  her  tones. 

Eva  related  Jack's  ruse. 

"Did  you  ever!  "  said  Miss  Dorcas;  "the  creature  knew 
that  we  slept  in  the  back  of  the  house,  and  he  got  you  to 
ring  our  door-bell.  Jacky,  what  a  naughty  fellow  you 
are ! " 

Mrs.  Betsey  now  appeared  on  the  staircase  in  an  equal 
state  of  dishabille :  — 

"Oh  dear,  Mrs.  Henderson,  we  are  so  shocked!" 

"Dear  me,  never  speak  of  it.  I  think  it  was  a  cunning 
trick  of  Jack.  He  knew  you  were  gone  to  bed,  and  saw 
I  was  up  and  so  got  me  to  ring  his  door-bell  for  him.  I 
don't  doubt  he  rode  up  town  in  the  omnibus.  Well,  good 
night  ! "  And  Eva  closed  the  door  and  flew  back  to  her 
own  little  nest  just  in  time  to  let  in  Harry. 

The  first  few  moments  after  they  were  fairly  by  the  fire 
side  were  devoted  to  a  recital  of  the  adventure,  with  dra 
matic  representations  of  Jack  and  his  mistresses.  "It's  a 
capital  move  on  Jack's  part.  It  got  me  into  the  very 
interior  of  the  fortress.  Only  think  of  seeing  them  in 
their  nightcaps !  That  is  carrying  all  the  outworks  of  cere 
mony  at  a  move." 


76  WE  AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

"To  say  nothing  of  their  eternal  gratitude,"  said  Harry. 

"Oh,  that  of  course.  They  were  ready  to  weep  on  my 
neck  with  joy  that  I  had  brought  the  dear  little  plague 
back  to  them,  and  I  don't  doubt  are  rejoicing  over  him  at 
this  moment.  But,  oh,  Harry,  you  must  hear  the  girls' 
Paris  letters." 

"Are  they  very  long?  "  said  Harry. 

"Fie  now,  Harry;  you  ought  to  be  interested  in  the 
girls. " 

"Why,  of  course  I  am,"  said  Harry,  pulling  out  his 
watch,  "  only  —  what  time  is  it  ?  " 

"Only  half  past  ten  —  not  a  bit  late,"  said  Eva.  As 
she  began  to  read  Ida's  letter,  Harry  settled  back  in  the 
embrace  of  a  luxurious  chair,  with  his  feet  stretched  out 
towards  the  fire,  and  gradually  the  details  of  Paris  life 
mingled  pleasingly  with  a  dream  —  a  fact  of  which  Eva 
was  made  aware  as  she  asked  him  suddenly  what  he  thought 
of  Ida's  views  on  a  certain  point. 

"Now,  Harry  —  you  have  n't  been  asleep  1 " 

"Just  a  moment.  The  very  least  in  the  world,"  said 
Harry,  looking  anxiously  alert  and  sitting  up  very  straight.* 

Then  Eva  read  Caroline's  letter. 

"Now,  is  n't  it  too  bad?"  she  said,  with  eagerness,  as 
she  finished. 

"Yes,  it  is,"  said  Harry  very  gravely.  "But,  Eva  dear, 
it 's  one  of  those  things  that  you  and  I  can  do  nothing  to 
help  —  it  is  avdyKT). " 

"What's  ananke?" 

"  The  name  the  old  Greeks  gave  to  that  perverse  Some 
thing  that  brought  ruin  and  misery  in  spite  of  and  out 
of  the  best  human  efforts." 

"But  I  want  to  bring  these  two  together." 

"Be  careful  how  you  try,  darling.  Who  knows  what 
the  results  maybe?  It's  a  subject  Bolton  never  speaks 
of,  where  he  has  his  own  purposes  and  conclusions;  and 


LETTERS  AND  AIR-CASTLES  77 

it 's  the  best  thing  for  Caroline  to  be  where  she  has  as 
many  allurements  and  distractions  as  she  has  in  Paris,  and 
such  a  wise,  calm,  strong  friend  as  your  sister. 

"And  now,  dear,  mayn't  I  go  to  bed? "  he  added,  with 
pathos.  "You  've  no  idea,  dear,  how  sleepy  I  am." 

"Oh,  certainly,  you  poor  boy,"  said  Eva,  bustling  about 
and  putting  up  the  chairs  and  books  preparatory  to  leaving 
the  parlor. 

"You  see,"  she  said,  going  upstairs,  "he  was  so  impe 
rious  that  I  really  had  to  go  with  him." 

"He!     Who?" 

"Why,  Jack,  to  be  sure,  he  did  all  but  speak,"  said 
Eva,  brush  in  hand,  and  letting  down  her  curls  before  the 
glass.  "You  see  I  was  in  a  reverie  over  those  letters  when 
the  barking  roused  me  —  I  don't  think  you  ever  heard  such 
a  barking;  and  when  I  got  him  in,  he  wouldn't  be  con 
tented —  kept  insisting  on  my  going  over  with  him  — 
was  n't  it  strange  ?  " 

Harry,  by  this  time  composed  for  the  night  and  half 
asleep,  said  it  was. 

In  a  few  moments  he  was  aroused  by  Eva's  saying  sud 
denly  :  — 

"Harry,  I  really  think  I  ought  to  bring  them  together. 
Now,  couldn't  I  do  something?  " 

"With  Jack?  "  said  Harry  drowsily. 

"Jack!  —  oh,  you  sleepyhead!  Well,  never  mind. 
Good-night." 


CHAPTEE   VIII 

THE  VANDERHEYDEN  FORTRESS  TAKEN 

"Now,  Harry,  I  '11  tell  you  what  I  'm  going  to  do  this 
morning,"  said  Eva,  with  the  air  of  a  little  general,  as  she 
poured  his  morning  coffee. 

"And  what  are  you  going  to  do?"  replied  he  in  the 
proper  tone  of  inquiry. 

"Well,  I  'm  going  to  take  the  old  fortress  over  the  way 
by  storm,  this  very  morning.  I  'm  going  to  rush  through 
the  breach  that  Jack  has  opened  into  the  very  interior  and 
see  what  there  is  there.  I  'm  perfectly  dying  to  get  the 
run  of  that  funny  old  house;  why,  Harry,  it's  just  like 
a  novel,  and  I  shouldn't  wonder  if  I  could  get  enough  out 
of  it  for  you  to  make  an  article  of." 

"Thank  you,  dear;  you  enter  into  the  spirit  of  article- 
hunting  like  one  to  the  manner  born." 

"That  I  do;  I'm  always  keeping  my  eyes  open  when 
I  go  about  New  York  for  bits  and  hints  that  you  can 
work  up,  and  I  'm  sure  you  ought  to  do  something  with 
this  old  Vanderheyden  "house.  I  know  there  must  be 
ghosts  in  it;  I  'm  perfectly  certain." 

"But  you  wouldn't  meet  them  in  a  morning  call,"  said 
Harry;  "that 's  contrary  to  all  ghostly  etiquette." 

"Never  mind,  I  '11  get  track  of  them.  I  '11  become  inti 
mate  with  old  Miss  Dorcas  and  get  her  to  relate  her  his 
tory,  and  if  there  is  a  ghost- chamber  I  '11  be  into  it." 

"Well,  success  to  you,"  said  Harry;  "but  to  me  it  looks 
like  a  formidable  undertaking.  Those  old  ladies  are  so 
padded  and  wadded  in  buckram." 


THE  VANDERHEYDEN  FORTRESS  TAKEN  79 

"  Oh,  pshaw !  there  's  just  what  Jack  has  done  for  me, 
he  has  made  a  breach  in  the  padding  and  buckram.  Only 
think  of  my  seeing  them  at  midnight  in  their  nightcaps! 
And  such  funny  nightcaps!  Why,  it's  an  occasion  long 
to  be  remembered,  and  I  would  be  willing  to  wager  any 
thing  they  are  talking  it  over  at  this  minute;  and,  of 
course,  you  see,  it 's  extremely  proper  and  quite  a  part  of 
the  play  that  I  should  come  in  this  morning  to  inquire 
after  the  wanderer,  and  to  hope  they  didn't  catch  cold, 
and  to  talk  over  the  matter  generally.  Now,  I  like  that 
old  Miss  Dorcas;  there  seems  to  me  to  be  an  immense 
amount  of  character  behind  all  her  starch  and  stiffness,  and 
I  think  she  's  quite  worth  knowing.  She  '11  be  an  acquisi 
tion  if  one  can  only  get  at  her." 

"Well,  as  I  said,  success  and  prosperity  go  with  you!" 
said  Harry,  as  he  rose  and  gathered  his  papers  to  go  to  his 
morning  work. 

"I  '11  go  right  out  with  you,"  said  Eva,  and  she  snatched 
from  the  hat-tree  a  shawl  and  a  little  morsel  of  white, 
fleecy  worsted,  which  the  initiated  surname  "a  cloud,"  and 
tied  it  over  her  head.  "I'm  going  right  in  upon  them 
now,"  she  said. 

It  was  a  brisk,  frosty  morning,  and  she  went  out  with 
Harry  and  darted  across  from  the  door.  He  saw  her  in 
the  distance,  as  he  went  down  the  street,  laughing  and  kiss 
ing  her  hand  to  him  on  the  door- step  of  the  Vanderheyden 
house. 

Just  then  the  sound  of  the  door- bell  —  unheard  of  in 
that  hour  in  the  morning  —  caused  an  excitement  in  the 
back  breakfast- parlor,  where  Miss  Dorcas  and  Mrs.  Betsey 
were  at  a  late  breakfast,  with  old  Dinah  standing  behind 
Miss  Dorcas's  chair  to  get  her  morning  orders,  giggling  and 
disputing  them  inch  by  inch,  as  was  her  ordinary  wont. 
The  old  door-bell  had  a  rustling,  harsh,  rusty  sound,  as 
if  cross  with  a  chronic  rheumatism  of  disuse. 


80  WE  AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

"Who  under  the  sun!"  said  Miss  Dorcas.  "Jack,  be 
still!" 

But  Jack  would  n't  be  still,  but  ran  and  snuffed  at  the 
door,  and  barked  as  if  he  smelt  a  legion  of  burglars. 

Eva  heard,  within  the  house,  the  dining-room  door  open, 
and  then  Jack's  barking  came  like  a  fire  of  artillery  at  the 
crack  of  the  front  door,  where  she  was  standing.  It  was 
slowly  opened,  and  old  Dinah's  giggling  countenance  ap 
peared.  "Laws  bless  your  soul,  Mis'  Henderson,"  she 
said,  flinging  the  door  wide  open,  "  is  that  you  1  Jack,  be 
still,  sir!" 

But  Eva  had  caught  Jack  up  in  her  arms,  and  walked 
with  him  to  the  door  of  the  breakfast-room.  "Do  pray 
excuse  me,"  she  said,  "but  I  thought  I'd  just  run  over 
and  see  that  you  hadn't  taken  any  cold." 

The  scene  within  was  not  uninviting.  There  was  a 
cheerful  wood  fire  burning  on  the  hearth  behind  a  pair  of 
gigantic  old-fashioned  brass  fire-irons.  The  little  break 
fast-table,  with  its  bright  old  silver  and  India  china,  was 
drawn  comfortably  up  in  front.  Miss  Dorcas  had  her  chair 
on  one  side  and  Mrs.  Betsey  on  the  other,  and  between 
them  there  was  a  chair  drawn  up  for  Jack,  where  he  had 
been  sitting  at  the  time  the  door-bell  rang. 

"We  are  ashamed  of  our  late  hours,"  said  Miss  Dorcas, 
when  she  had  made  Eva  sit  down  in  an  old-fashioned  claw- 
footed  armchair  in  the  warmest  corner;  "we  don't  usually 
breakfast  so  late,  but,  the  fact  is,  Betsey  was  quite  done 
up  by  the  adventure  last  night." 

"Perhaps,"  said  Eva,  "I  had  better  have  tried  keeping 
Jack  till  morning." 

"Oh  no,  indeed,  Mrs.  Henderson,"  said  Mrs.  Betsey, 
with  energy;  "I  know  it's  silly,  but  I  shouldn't  have 
slept  a  wink  all  night  if  Jack  hadn't  come  home.  You 
know  he  sleeps  with  me,"  she  added. 

Eva  did  not  know  it  before,  but  she  said  "  Yes  "  all  the 
same,  and  the  good  lady  rushed  on :  — 


THE   VAXDERHEYDEN  FORTRESS  TAKEN  81 

"Yes;  Dorcas  thinks  it  Js  rather  silly,  but  I  do  let  Jack 
sleep  on  the  foot  of  my  bed.  I  spread  his  blanket  for  him 
every  night,  and  I  always  wash  his  feet  and  wipe  them 
clean  before  he  goes  to  bed,  and  when  you  brought  him 
back  you  really  ought  to  have  seen  him  run  right  upstairs 
to  where  I  keep  his  bowl  and  towel;  and  he  stood  there, 
just  as  sensible,  waiting  for  me  to  come  and  wash  him.  I 
wish  you  could  have  seen  how  dirty  he  was !  I  can't  think 
where  ever  that  dog  gets  his  paws  so  greasy." 

'"Cause  he  will  eat  out  o'  swill-pails!"  interposed 
Dinah,  with  a  chuckle.  "  Greatest  dog  after  swill-pails  I 
ever  see.  That 's  what  he  's  off  after." 

"Well,  I  don't  know  why.  It 's  very  bad  of  him  when 
we  always  feed  him  and  take  such  pains  with  him,"  said 
Mrs.  Betsey  in  accents  of  lamentation. 

"Dogs  is  allers  jest  so,"  said  Dinah;  "they  's  arter  nas- 
tiness  and  carron.  You  can't  make  a  Christian  out  o'  a 
dog,  no  matter  what  you  do." 

Old  Dinah  was  the  very  impersonation  of  that  coarse, 
hard  literalness  which  forces  actual  unpalatable  facts  upon 
unwilling  ears.  There  was  no  disputing  that  she  spoke 
most  melancholy  truths,  that  even  the  most  infatuated 
dog-lovers  could  not  always  shut  their  eyes  to.  But  Mrs. 
Betsey  chose  wholly  to  ignore  her  facts  and  treat  her  com 
munication  as  if  it  had  no  existence,  so  she  turned  her 
back  to  Dinah  and  went  on. 

"I  don't  know  what  makes  Jack  have  these  turns  of 
running  away.  Sometimes  I  think  it 's  our  system  of  diet 
ing  him.  Perhaps  it  may  be  because  we  don't  allow  him 
all  the  meat  he  wants;  but  then  they  say  if  you  do  give 
these  pet  dogs  meat  they  become  so  gross  that  it  is  quite 
shocking. " 

Miss  Dorcas  rapped  her  snuff-box,  sat  back  in  her  chair, 
and  took  snuff  with  an  air  of  antique  dignity  that  seemed 
to  call  heaven  and  earth  to  witness  that  she  only  tolerated 


82  WE   AND  OUR   NEIGHBORS 

such  fooleries  on  account  of  her  sister,  and  not  at  all  in 
the  way  of  personal  approbation. 

The  nurture  and  admonition  of  Jack  was  the  point 
where  the  two  sisters  had  a  chronic  controversy,  Miss  Dor 
cas  inclining  to  the  side  of  strict  discipline  and  vigorous 
repression.  In  fact,  Miss  Dorcas  soothed  her  violated 
notions  of  dignity  and  propriety  by  always  speaking  of 
Jack  as  "Betsey's  dog"  —  he  was  one  of  the  permitted 
toys  and  amusements  of  Betsey's  more  juvenile  years;  but 
she  felt  called  upon  to  keep  some  limits  of  discipline  to 
prevent  Jack's  paw  from  ruling  too  absolutely  in  the  fam 
ily  councils. 

"You  see,"  said  Mrs.  Betsey,  going  on  with  her  reminis 
cences  of  yesterday,  "we  had  taken  Jack  down  town  with  us 
because  we  wanted  to  get  his  photographs;  we  'd  had  him 
taken  last  week,  and  they  were  not  ready  till  yesterday." 

"Dear  me,  do  show  them  to  me,"  said  Eva,  entering 
cheerfully  into  the  humor  of  the  thing;  and  Mrs.  Betsey 
trotted  upstairs  to  get  them. 

"You  see  how  very  absurd  we  are,"  said  Miss  Dorcas; 
"but  the  fact  is,  Mrs.  Henderson,  Betsey  has  had  her 
troubles,  poor  child,  and  I  'm  glad  to  have  her  have  any 
thing  that  can  be  any  sort  of  a  comfort  to  her." 

Betsey  came  back  with  her  photographs,  which  she  ex 
hibited  with  the  most  artless  innocence. 

"You  see,"  said  Miss  Dorcas,  "just  how  it  is.  If  peo 
ple  set  out  to  treat  a  dog  as  a  child,  they  have  to  take  the 
consequences.  That  dog  rules  this  whole  family,  and  of 
course  he  behaves  like  spoiled  children  generally.  Here, 
now,  this  morning;  Betsey  and  I  both  have  bad  colds  be 
cause  we  were  got  out  of  bed  last  night  with  that  creature. " 

Here  Jack,  seeming  to  understand  that  he  was  the  sub 
ject-matter  of  some  criticism,  rose  up  suddenly  on  his 
haunches  before  Miss  Dorcas  and  waved  his  paws  in  a  sup 
plicatory  manner  at  her.  Jack  understood  this  to  be  his 


THE   VANDERHEYDEN   FORTRESS   TAKEN  83 

only  strong  point,  and  brought  it  out  as  a  trump- card  on 
all  occasions  when  he  felt  himself  to  be  out  of  favor. 
Miss  Dorcas  laughed,  as  she  generally  did,  and  Jack  seemed 
delighted,  and  sprang  into  her  lap  and  offered  to  kiss  her 
with  the  most  brazen  assurance. 

"  Oh,  well,  Mrs.  Henderson,  I  suppose  you  see  that  we 
are  two  old  fools  about  that  dog,"  she  said.  "I  don't 
know  but  I  am  almost  as  silly  as  Betsey  is,  but  the  fact 
is  one  must  have  something,  and  a  dog  is  not  so  much  risk 
as  a  boy,  after  all.  Yes,  Jack,"  she  said,  tapping  his 
shaggy  head  patronizingly,  "after  all  you're  no  more  im 
pudent  than  puppies  in  general." 

"I  never  quarrel  with  any  one  for  loving  dogs,"  said 
Eva.  "For  my  part,  I  think  no  family  is  complete  with 
out  one.  I  tell  Harry  we  must  '  set  up  '  our  dog  as  soon 
as  we  get  a  little  more  settled.  When  we  get  one,  we  '11 
compare  notes." 

"Well,"  said  Miss  Dorcas,  "I  always  comfort  myself 
with  thinking  that  dear  Sir  Walter,  with  all  his  genius, 
went  as  far  in  dog-petting  as  any  of  us.  You  remember 
Washington  Irving' s  visit  to  Abbotsford?  " 

Eva  did  not  remember  it,  and  Miss  Dorcas  said  she  must 
get  it  for  her  at  once;  she  ought  to  read  it.  And  away 
she  went  to  look  it  up  in  the  book-case  in  the  next  room. 

"The  fact  is,"  said  Mrs.  Betsey  mysteriously,  "though 
Dorcas  has  so  much  strength  of  mind,  she  is  to  the  full  as 
silly  about  Jack  as  I  am.  When  I  was  gone  to  Newburg, 
if  you  '11  believe  me,  she  let  Jack  sleep  on  her  bed.  Dinah 
knows  it,  does  n't  she  ?  " 

Dinah  confirmed  this  fact  by  a  loud  explosion,  in  which 
there  was  a  singular  mixture  of  snort  and  giggle;  and  to 
cover  her  paroxysm  she  seized  violently  on  the  remains  of 
the  breakfast  and  bore  them  out  into  the  kitchen,  and  was 
heard  giggling  and  gurgling  in  a  rill  of  laughter  all  along 
the  way. 


84  WE  AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

Mrs.  Betsey  began  gathering  up  and  arranging  the  cups, 
and  filling  a  lacquered  bowl  of  Japanese  fabric  with  hot 
water,  she  proceeded  to  wash  the  china  and  silver. 

"What  lovely  china,"  said  Eva,  with  the  air  of  a  con 
noisseur. 

"Yes,"  said  Mrs.  Betsey,  "this  china  has  been  in  the 
family  for  three  generations,  and  we  never  suffer  a  servant 
to  touch  it." 

"Please  let  me  help  you,"  said  Eva,  taking  up  the  nap 
kin  sociably,  "I  do  so  love  old  china." 

And  pretty  soon  one  might  have  seen  a  gay  morning 
party  —  Mrs.  Betsey  washing,  Eva  wiping,  and  Miss  Dor 
cas  the  while  reading  scraps  out  of  "Abbotsford"  about 
Maida,  and  Finette,  and  Hamlet,  and  Camp,  and  Percy, 
and  others  of  Walter  Scott's  four-footed  friends.  The  ice 
of  ceremony  and  stiffness  was  not  only  broken  by  this  bit  of 
morning  domesticity,  but  floated  gayly  down-stream  never 
to  be  formed  again. 

You  may  go  further  into  the  hearts  of  your  neighbors 
by  one  half  hour  of  undressed  rehearsal  behind  the  scenes 
than  a  century  of  ceremonious  posing  before  the  footlights. 
Real  people,  with  anything  like  heart  and  tastes  and  emo 
tions,  do  not  enjoy  being  shut  up  behind  barricades,  and 
conversing  with  their  neighbors  only  through  loopholes. 
If  any  warm-hearted  adventurer  gets  in  at  the  back  door  of 
the  heart,  the  stiffest  and  most  formal  are  often  the  most 
thankful  for  the  deliverance. 

The  advent  of  this  pretty  young  creature,  with  her  air 
of  joy  and  gayety,  into  the  shadowed  and  mossy  precincts 
of  the  old  Vanderheyden  house  was  an  event  to  be  dated 
from,  as  the  era  of  a  new  life.  She  was  to  them  a  flower, 
a  picture,  a  poem;  and  a  thousand  dear  remembrances  and 
new  capabilities  stirred  in  the  withered  old  hearts  to  meet 
her.  Her  sincere  artlessness  and  naive  curiosity,  her  gen 
uine  interest  in  the  old  time-worn  furniture,  relics,  and  be- 


THE   VANDERHEYDEN  FORTRESS   TAKEN  85 

longings  of  the  house  gave  them  a  new  sense  of  possession. 
We  seem  to  acquire  our  things  over  again  when  stimulated 
by  the  admiration  of  a  new  spectator. 

"Dear  me,"  said  Eva,  as  she  put  down  a  teacup  she 
was  wiping,  "what  a  pity  I  haven't  some  nice  old  china 
to  begin  on !  but  all  my  things  are  spick-and-span  new ;  I 
don't  think  it 's  a  bit  interesting.  I  do  love  to  see  things 
that  look  as  if  they  had  a  history." 

"Ah!  my  dear  child,  you  are  making  history  fast 
enough,"  said  Miss  Dorcas,  with  that  kind  of  half  sigh 
with  which  people  at  eighty  look  down  on  the  aspirants  of 
twenty;  "don't  try  to  hurry  things." 

"But  I  think  old  things  are  so  nice,"  said  Eva.  "They 
get  so  many  associations.  Things  just  out  of  Tiffany's 
or  Collamore's  have  n't  associations  —  there  's  no  poetry  in 
them.  Now,  everything  in  your  house  has  its  story.  It 's 
just  like  the  old  villas  I  used  to  see  in  Italy  where  the 
fountains  were  all  mossy." 

"We  are  mossy  enough,  dear  knows,"  said  Miss  Dorcas, 
laughing,  "Betsey  and  I." 

"I  'm  so  glad  I  've  got  acquainted  with  you,"  said  Eva, 
looking  up  with  clear,  honest  eyes  into  Miss  Dorcas's  face; 
"it's  so  lonesome  not  to  know  one's  neighbors,  and  I'm 
an  inexperienced  beginner,  you  know.  There  are  a  thou 
sand  questions  I  might  ask,  where  your  experience  could 
help  me." 

"Well,  don't  hesitate,  dear  Mrs.  Henderson,"  said  Mrs. 
Betsey;  "do  use  us  if  you  can.  Dorcas  is  really  quite  a 
doctor,  and  if  you  should  be  ill  any  time,  don't  fail  to  let 
us  know.  We  never  have  a  doctor.  Dorcas  always  knows 
just  what  to  do.  You  ought  to  see  her  herb  closet  — 
there  's  a  little  of  everything  in  it;  and  she  is  wonderful 
for  strengthening-mixtures. " 

And  so  Eva  was  taken  to  see  the  herbal,  and  thence,  by 
natural  progression,  through  the  chambers,  where  she  ad- 


86  WE  AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

mired  the  old  furniture.  Then  cabinets  were  unlocked, 
old  curiosities  brought  out,  snatches  and  bits  of  history 
followed,  and,  in  fact,  lunch  time  came  in  the  old  Vander- 
heyden  house  before  any  of  them  perceived  whither  the 
tide  of  social  enthusiasm  had  carried  them.  Eva  stayed 
to  lunch.  Such  a  thing  had  not  happened  for  years  to  the 
desolate  old  couple,  and  it  really  seemed  as  if  the  roses  of 
youth  and  joy,  the  flowers  of  years  past,  all  bloomed  and 
breathed  around  her,  and  it  was  late  in  the  day  before  she 
returned  to  her  own  home  to  look  back  on  the  Vanderhey- 
den  fortress  as  taken.  Two  stiff,  ceremonious  strangers 
had  become  two  warm-hearted,  admiring  friends  —  a  fortress 
locked  and  barred  by  constraint  had  become  an  open  door  of 
friendship.  Was  it  not  a  good  morning's  work? 


CHAPTER  IX 

JIM    AND    ALICE 

THE  recent  discussions  of  the  marriage  question,  betok 
ening  unrest  and  dissatisfaction  with  the  immutable  claims 
of  this  institution,  are  founded,  no  doubt,  on  the  various 
distresses  and  inconveniences  of  ill-assorted  marriages. 

In  times  when  the  human  being  was  little  developed, 
the  elements  of  agreement  and  disagreement  were  simpler, 
and  marriages  were  proportionately  more  tranquil.  But 
modern  civilized  man  has  a  thousand  points  of  possible 
discord  in  an  immutable  near  relation  where  there  was  one 
in  the  primitive  ages.  The  wail,  and  woe,  and  struggle 
to  undo  marriage  bonds,  in  our  day,  comes  from  this  dis 
sonance  of  more  developed  and  more  widely  varying  natures, 
and  it  shows  that  a  large  proportion  of  marriages  have  been 
contracted  without  any  advised  and  rational  effort  to  ascer 
tain  whether  there  was  a  reasonable  foundation  for  a  close 
and  lifelong  intimacy. 

It  would  seem  as  if  the  arrangements  and  customs  of 
modern  society  did  everything  that  could  be  done  to  render 
such  a  previous  knowledge  impossible.  Good  sense  would 
say  that  if  men  and  women  are  to  single  each  other  out, 
and  bind  themselves  by  a  solemn  oath,  forsaking  all  others 
to  cleave  to  each  other  as  long  as  life  should  last,  there 
ought  to  be,  before  taking  vows  of  such  gravity,  the  very 
best  opportunity  to  become  minutely  acquainted  with  each 
other's  dispositions,  and  habits,  and  modes  of  thought  and 
action.  It  would  seem  to  be  the  dictate  of  reason  that  a 
long  and  intimate  friendship  ought  to  be  allowed,  in  which, 


88  WE   AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

without  any  bias  or  commitment,  young  people  might  have 
full  opportunity  to  study  each  other's  character  and  dispo 
sition,  being  under  no  obligation,  expressed  or  implied,  on 
account  of  such  intimacy  to  commit  themselves  to  the 
irrevocable  union. 

Such  a  kind  of  friendship  is  the  instinctive  desire  of 
both  the  parties  that  make  up  society.  Both  young  men 
and  young  women,  as  we  observe,  would  greatly  enjoy  a 
more  intimate  and  friendly  intercourse,  if  the  very  fact  of 
that  initiatory  acquaintance  were  not  immediately  seized 
upon  by  busy  A,  B,  and  C,  and  reported  as  an  engagement. 
The  flower  that  might  possibly  blossom  into  the  rose  of 
love  is  withered  and  blackened  by  the  busy  efforts  of  gos 
sips  to  pick  it  open  before  the  time. 

Our  young  friend,  Alice  Van  Arsdel,  was  what  in  mod 
ern  estimation  would  be  called  just  the  "nicest  kind  of  a 
girl."  She  had  a  warm  heart,  a  high  sense  of  justice  and 
honor;  she  was  devout  in  her  religious  profession,  conscien 
tious  in  the  discharge  of  the  duties  of  family  life.  Natu 
rally,  Alice  was  of  a  temperament  which  might  have  in 
clined  her  to  worldly  ambition.  She  had  that  keen  sense 
of  the  advantages  of  wealth  and  station  which  even  the 
most  sensible  person  may  have,  and,  had  her  father's  pros 
perity  continued,  might  have  run  the  gay  career  of  flirta 
tion  and  conquest  supposed  to  be  proper  to  a  rich  young 
belle. 

The  failure  of  her  father  not  only  cut  off  all  these  pros 
pects,  but  roused  the  deeper  and  better  part  of  her  nature 
to  comfort  and  support  her  parents,  and  to  assist  in  all 
ways  in  trimming  the  family  vessel  to  the  new  navigation. 
Her  self-esteem  took  a  different  form.  Had  she  been 
enthroned  in  wealth  and  station,  it  would  have  taken  plea 
sure  in  reigning ;  thrown  from  that  position,  it  became  her 
pride  to  adapt  herself  entirely  to  the  proprieties  of  her 
different  circumstances.  Up  to  that  hour  she  had  counted 


JIM   AND   ALICE  89 

Jim  Fellows  simply  as  a  tassel  on  her  fan,  or  any  other 
appendage  to  her  glittering  life.  When  the  crash  came 
she  expected  no  more  of  him  than  of  a  last  summer's  bird, 
and  it  was  with  somewhat  of  pleased  surprise  that,  on  the 
first  public  tidings  of  the  news,  she  received  from  Jim  an 
expensive  hothouse  bouquet  of  a  kind  that  he  had  never 
thought  of  giving  in  prosperous  days. 

"The  extravagant  boy!"  she  said.  Yet  she  said  it 
with  tears  in  her  eyes,  and  she  put  the  bouquet  into  water, 
and  changed  it  every  day  while  it  lasted.  The  flowers  and 
the  friends  of  adversity  have  a  value  all  their  own. 

Then  Jim  came,  came  daily,  with  downright  unsenti 
mental  offers  of  help,  and  made  so  much  fun  and  gayety 
for  them  in  the  days  of  their  breaking  up  as  almost  shocked 
Aunt  Maria,  who  felt  that  a  period  of  weeping  and  wailing 
would  have  been  more  appropriate.  Jim  became  recognized 
in  the  family  as  a  sort  of  factotum,  always  alert  and  ready 
to  advise  or  to  do,  and  generally  knowing  where  every 
body  or  thing  which  was  wanted  in  New  York  was  to  be 
found.  But,  as  Alice  was  by  no  means  the  only  daughter, 
as  Marie  and  Angelique  were  each  in  their  way  as  lively 
and  desirable  young  candidates  for  admiration,  it  would 
have  appeared  that  here  was  the  best  possible  chance  for 
a  young  man  to  have  a  friendship  whose  buds  even  the 
gossips  would  not  pick  open  to  find  if  there  were  love  in 
side  of  them.  As  a  young  neophyte  of  the  all-powerful 
press,  Jim  had  the  dispensation  of  many  favors,  in  the 
form  of  tickets  to  operas,  concerts,  and  other  public  enter 
tainments,  which  were  means  of  conferring  enjoyment  and 
variety,  and  dispensed  impartially  among  the  sisters.  Eva's 
house,  in  all  the  history  of  its  finding,  inception,  and  con 
struction,  had  been  a  ground  for  many  a  familiar  meeting 
from  whence  had  grown  up  a  pleasant  feeling  of  comrade 
ship  and  intimacy. 

The  things  that  specialized  this  intimacy,  as  relating  to 


90  WE  AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

Alice  more  than  to  the  other  sisters,  were  things  as  indefi 
nite  and  indefinable  as  the  shade  mark  between  two  tints 
of  the  rainbow;  and  yet  there  undoubtedly  was  a  peculiar 
intimacy,  and  since  the  misfortunes  of  the  family  it  had 
been  of  a  graver  kind  than  before,  though  neither  of  them 
cared  to  put  it  into  words.  Between  a  young  man  and  a 
young  woman  of  marriageable  age  a  friendship  of  this 
kind,  if  let  alone,  generally  comes  to  its  bud  and  blossom 
in  its  own  season;  and  there  is  something  unutterably  vex 
atious  and  revolting  to  every  fibre  of  a  girl's  nature  to  have 
any  well-meaning  interference  to  force  this  de'nouementl 

Alice  enjoyed  the  unspoken  devotion  of  Jim,  which  she 
perceived  by  that  acute  sort  of  divination  of  which  women 
are  possessed ;  she  felt  quietly  sure  that  she  had  more  influ 
ence  over  him,  could  do  more  with  him,  than  any  other 
woman;  and  this  consciousness  of  power  over  a  man  is 
something  most  agreeable  to  girls  of  Alice's  degree  of  self- 
esteem.  She  assumed  to  be  a  sort  of  mentor;  she  curbed 
the  wild  sallies  of  his  wit,  rebuking  him  if  he  travestied 
a  hymn,  or  made  a  smart,  funny  application  of  a  text  of 
Scripture.  But,  as  she  generally  laughed,  the  culprit  was 
not  really  overborne  by  the  censure.  She  had  induced 
him  to  go  with  her  to  Mr.  St.  John's  church,  and  even  to 
take  a  class  in  the  Sunday-school,  where  he  presided  with 
the  unction  of  an  apostle  over  a  class  of  street  gamins, 
who  certainly  never  found  a  more  entertaining  teacher. 

Now,  although  Marie  and  Angelique  were  also  teachers 
in  the  same  school,  it  somehow  always  happened  that  Jim 
and  Alice  walked  to  the  scene  of  their  duties  in  company. 
It  was  one  of  those  quiet,  unobserved  arrangements  of  par 
ticles  which  are  the  result  of  laws  of  chemical  affinity. 
These  street  tete-a-tetes  gave  Alice  admirable  opportunity 
for  those  graceful  admonitions  which  are  so  very  effective 
on  young  gentlemen  when  coming  from  handsome,  agree 
able  monitors.  On  a  certain  Sunday  morning  in  our  his- 


JIM  AND   ALICE  91 

tory,  as  Alice  was  on  her  way  to  the  mission  school  with 
Jim,  she  had  been  enjoining  upon  him  to  moderate  his 
extreme  liveliness  to  suit  the  duties  of  the  place  and  scene. 

"It 's  all  very  well,  Alice,"  he  said  to  her,  "so  long  as 
I  don't  have  to  be  too  much  with  that  St.  John.  But  I 
declare  that  fellow  stirs  me  up  awfully;  he  looks  so  meek 
and  so  fearfully  pious  that  it 's  all  I  can  do  to  keep  from 
ripping  out  an  oath,  just  to  see  him  jump !  " 

"Jim,  you  bad  fellow!     How  can  you  talk  so? " 

"Well,  it 's  a  serious  fact  now.  Ministers  ought  n't  to 
look  so  pious!  It's  too  much  a  temptation.  Why,  last 
Sunday,  when  he  came  trailing  by  so  soft  and  meek  and 
asked  me  what  books  we  wanted,  I  perfectly  longed  to  rip 
out  an  oath  and  say,  '  Why  in  thunder  can't  you  speak 
louder! '  It 's  a  temptation  of  the  devil,  I  know;  but  you 
must  n't  let  St.  John  and  me  run  too  much  together,  or  I 
shall  blow  out." 

"Oh,  Jim,  you  mustn't  talk  so.  Why,  you  really 
shock  me  —  you  grieve  me. " 

"Well,  you  see,  I've  given  up  swearing  for  ever  so 
long,  but  some  kinds  of  people  do  tempt  me  fearfully,  and 
he  's  one  of  'em,  and  then  I  think  that  he  must  think  I  'm 
a  wolf  in  sheep's  clothing.  But  then,  you  see,  a  wolf  un 
derstands  those  cubs  better  than  a  sheep.  You  ought  to  hear 
how  I  put  gospel  into  them.  I  make  'em  come  out  on  the 
responses  like  little  Trojans.  I  've  promised  every  boy  who 
is  *  sharp  up  '  on  his  Collect  next  Sunday  a  new  pop-gun." 

"  Oh,  Jim,  you  creature ! "  said  Alice,  laughing. 

"By  George,  Alice,  it 's  the  best  way.  You  don't  know 
anything  about  these  little  heathen.  You  've  got  to  take 
'em  where  they  live.  They  put  up  with  the  Collect  for 
the  sake  of  the  pop-gun,  you  see." 

"But,  Jim,  I  really  was  in  hopes  that  you  would  look 
on  this  thing  seriously,"  said  Alice,  endeavoring  to  draw 
on  a  face  of  protest. 


92  WE  AND  OUR  NEIGHBORS 

"Why,  Alice,  I  am  serious;  didn't  I  go  round  to  the 
highways  and  hedges,  drumming  up  those  little  varmints  ? 
Not  a  soul  of  them  would  have  put  his  head  inside  a  Sun 
day-school  room  if  it  had  n't  been  for  me.  I  tell  you  I 
ought  to  be  encouraged  now.  I  'm  not  appreciated." 

"Oh,  Jim,  you  have  done  beautifully." 

"I  should  think  I  had.  I  keep  a  long  face  while  they 
are  there,  and  don't  swear  at  Mr.  St.  John,  and  sing  like 
a  church  robin.  So  I  think  you  ought  to  let  me  let  out 
a  little  to  you  going  home.  That  eases  my  mind;  it 's  the 
confessional  —  Mr.  St.  John  believes  in  that.  I  didn't 
swear,  mind  you.  I  only  felt  like  it;  maybe  that'll  wear 
off,  by  and  by.  So  don't  give  me  up,  yet." 

"Oh,  I  don't;  and  I'm  perfectly  sure,  Jim,  that  you 
are  the  very  person  that  can  do  good  to  these  wild  boys. 
Of  course,  the  free  experience  of  life  which  young  men 
have  enables  them  to  know  how  to  deal  with  such  cases 
better  than  we  girls  can." 

"Yes,  you  ought  to  hear  me  expound  the  command 
ments,  and  put  it  into  them  about  stealing  and  lying. 
You  see,  Jim  knows  a  thing  or  two,  and  is  up  to  their 
tricks.  They  don't  come  it  round  Jim,  I  tell  you.  Any 
boy  that  don't  toe  the  crack  gets  it.  I  give  'em  C  sharp 
with  the  key  up." 

"  Oh,  Jim,  you  certainly  are  original  in  your  ways !  But 
I  dare  say  you  're  right,"  said  Alice.  "You  know  how  to 
get  on  with  them." 

"  Indeed  I  do.  I  tell  you  I  know  what 's  what  for  these 
boys,  though  I  don't  know,  and  don't  care  about,  what 
the  old  coves  did  in  the  first  two  centuries,  and  all  that. 
Don't  you  think,  Alice,  St.  John  is  a  little  prosy  on  that 
chapter  1 " 

"Mr.  St.  John  is  such  a  good  man  that  I  receive  every 
thing  he  says  on  subjects  where  he  knows  more  than  I 
do,"  said  Alice  virtuously. 


JIM  AND  ALICE  93 

"Oh,  pshaw,  Alice!  if  a  fellow  has  to  swallow  every 
good  man's  hobby-horses,  hoofs,  tail,  and  all,  why,  he  '11 
have  a  good  deal  to  digest.  I  tell  you,  St.  John  is  too 
'  other-worldly, '  as  Charles  Lamb  used  to  say.  He  ought 
to  get  in  love,  and  get  married.  I  think,  now,  that  if  our 
little  Angie  would  take  him  in  hand  she  would  bring  him 
into  mortal  spheres,  make  a  nice  fellow  of  him." 

"Oh,  Mr.  St.  John  never  will  marry,"  said  Alice  sol 
emnly;  "he  is  devoted  to  the  Church.  He  has  published 
a  tract  on  holy  virginity  that  is  beautiful." 

"Holy  grandmother!"  said  Jim;  "that's  all  bosh, 
Ally.  Now  you  are  too  sensible  a  girl  to  talk  that  way. 
That 's  going  to  Rome  on  a  high  canter." 

"I  don't  think  so,"  said  Alice  stoutly.  "For  my  part, 
I  think  if  a  man,  for  the  sake  of  devoting  himself  to  the 
Church,  gives  up  family  cares,  I  reverence  him.  I  like  to 
feel  that  my  rector  is  something  sacred  to  the  altar.  The 
very  idea  of  a  clergyman  in  any  other  than  sacred  relations 
is  disagreeable  to  me." 

"Go  it,  now,  so  long  as  I  'm  not  the  clergyman!" 

"  You  sauce-box !  " 

"Well,  now,  mark  my  words.  St.  John  is  a  man,  after 
all,  and  not  a  Fra  Angelico  angel,  with  a  long  neck  and 
a  lily  in  his  hand,  and,  I  tell  you,  when  Angie  sits  there 
at  the  head  of  her  class,  working  and  fussing  over  those 
girls,  she  looks  confoundedly  pretty,  and  if  St.  John  finds 
it  out  I  shall  think  the  better  of  him,  and  /  think  he  will. " 

"Pshaw,  Jim,  he  never  looks  at  her." 

"Don't  he?  He  does,  though.  I  've  seen  him  go  round 
and  round,  and  look  at  her  as  if  she  was  an  electrical  bat 
tery,  or  something  that  he  was  afraid  might  go  off  and  kill 
him.  But  he  does  look  at  her.  I  tell  you,  Jim  knows 
the  signs  of  the  sky." 

With  which  edifying  preparation  of  mind,  Alice  found 
herself  at  the  door  of  the  Sunday-school  room,  where  the 
pair  were  graciously  received  by  Mr.  St.  John. 


CHAPTEE  X 

MR.   ST.   JOHN 

THAT  good  man,  in  the  calm  innocence  of  his  heart,  was 
ignorant  of  the  temptations  to  which  he  exposed  his  tumul 
tuous  young  disciple.  He  was  serenely  gratified  with  the 
sight  of  Jim's  handsome  face  and  alert,  active  figure,  as  he 
was  enacting  good  shepherd  over  his  unruly  flock.  Had 
he  known  the  exact  nature  of  the  motives  which  he  pre 
sented  to  lead  them  to  walk  in  the  ways  of  piety,  he  might 
have- searched  a  good  while  in  primitive  records  hefore  find 
ing  a  churchly  precedent. 

Arthur  St.  John  was  by  nature  a  poet  and  idealist. 
He  was  as  pure  as  a  chrysolite,  as  refined  as  a  flower; 
and,  being  thus,  had  been,  by  the  irony  of  fate,  born  on 
one  of  the  bleakest  hillsides  of  New  Hampshire,  where 
there  was  a  literal  famine  of  any  aesthetic  food.  His  child 
hood  had  been  fed  on  the  dry  husks  of  doctrinal  catechism ; 
he  had  sat  wearily  on  hard  high-backed  seats  and  dangled 
his  little  legs  hopelessly  through  sermons  on  the  difference 
between  justification  and  sanctification.  His  ultra-morbid 
conscientiousness  had  been  wrought  into  agonized  convul 
sions  by  stringent  endeavors  to  carry  him  through  certain 
prescribed  formulae  of  conviction  of  sin  and  conversion; 
efforts  which,  grating  against  natures  of  a  certain  delicate 
fibre,  produce  wounds  and  abrasions  which  no  after-life  can 
heal.  To  such  a  one  the  cool  shades  of  the  Episcopal 
Church,  with  its  orderly  ways,  its  poetic  liturgy,  its  artistic 
ceremonies,  were  as  the  shadow  of  a  great  rock  in  a  weary 
land.  No  converts  are  so  disposed  to  be  ultra  as  converts 


MR.    ST.    JOHX  95 

by  reaction;  and  persons  of  a  poetic  and  imaginative  tem 
perament  are  peculiarly  liable  to  these  extremes. 

Wearied  with  the  intense  and  noisy  clangor  of  modern 
thought,  it  was  not  strange  if  he  should  come  to  think  free 
inquiry  an  evil,  look  longingly  back  on  the  ages  of  simple 
credulity,  and  believe  that  the  dark  ages  of  intellect  were 
the  bright  ones  of  faith.  Without  really  going  over  to  the 
Romish  Church,  he  proposed  to  walk  that  path,  fine  as  the 
blade  that  Mahomet  fabled  as  the  Bridge  of  Paradise,  in 
which  he  might  secure  all  the  powers  and  influences  and 
advantages  of  that  old  system  without  its  defects  and  cor 
ruptions. 

So  he  had  established  his  mission  in  one  of  the  least 
hopeful  neighborhoods  of  New  York.  The  chapel  was  a 
marvel  of  beauty  and  taste  at  small  expense,  for  St.  John 
was  in  a  certain  way  an  ecclesiastical  architect  and  artist. 
He  could  illuminate  neatly,  and  had  at  command  a  good 
store  of  the  beautiful  forms  of  the  past  to  choose  from. 
He  worked  at  diaphanous  windows  which  had  all  the  effect 
of  painted  glass,  and  emblazoned  texts  and  legends,  and 
painted  in  polychrome,  till  the  little  chapel  dazzled  the 
eyes  of  street  vagabonds,  who  never  before  had  been  made 
welcome  to  so  pretty  a  place  in  their  lives.  Then,  when 
he  impressed  it  on  the  minds  of  these  poor  people  that  this 
lovely,  pretty  little  church  was  their  Father's  house,  freely 
open  to  them  every  day,  and  that  prayers  and  psalms 
might  be  heard  there  morning  and  evening,  and  the  Holy 
Communion  of  Christ's  love  every  Sunday,  it  is  no  marvel 
if  many  were  drawn  in  and  impressed.  Beauty  of  form 
and  attractiveness  of  color  in  the  church  arrangements  of 
the  rich  may  cease  to  be  means  of  grace  and  become  wan 
tonness  of  luxury  —  but  for  the  very  poor  they  are  an  edu 
cation,  they  are  means  of  quickening  the  artistic  sense, 
which  is  twin  brother  to  the  spiritual.  The  rich  do  not 
need  these  things,  and  the  poor  do. 


96  WE   AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

St.  John,  like  many  men  of  seemingly  gentle  tempera 
ment,  had  the  organizing  talents  of  the  schoolmaster.  No 
one  could  be  with  him  and  not  feel  him;  and  the  intense 
purpose  with  which  he  labored,  in  season  and  out  of  season, 
carried  all  before  it.  He  marshaled  his  forces  like  an 
army;  his  eye  was  everywhere  and  on  every  one.  He 
trained  his  choir  of  singing  boys  for  processional  singing, 
he  instructed  his  teachers,  he  superintended  and  catechised 
his  school.  In  the  life  of  incessant  devotion  to  the  Church 
which  he  led,  woman  had  no  place  except  as  an  obedient 
instrument.  He  valued  the  young  and  fair  who  flocked 
to  his  standard,  simply  and  only  for  what  they  could  do  in 
his  work,  and  apparently  had  no  worldly  change  with 
which  to  carry  on  commerce  of  society.  Yet  it  was  true, 
as  Jim  said,  that  his  eye  had  in  some  way  or  other  been 
caught  by  Angelique;  yet,  at  first,  it  was  in  the  way  of 
doubt  and  inquiry  rather  than  approval. 

Angelique  was  gifted  by  nature  with  a  certain  air  of 
piquant  vivacity,  which  gave  to  her  pretty  person  the  effect 
of  a  French  picture.  In  heart  and  character  she  was  a 
perfect  little  self-denying  saint  infinitely  humble  in  her 
own  opinion,  devoted  to  doing  good  wherever  her  hand 
could  find  it,  and  ready  at  any  time  to  work  her  pretty 
fingers  to  the  bone  in  a  good  cause.  But  yet  undeniably 
she  had  a  certain  style  and  air  of  fashion  not  a  bit  like 
"St.  Jerome's  love"  or  any  of  the  mediaeval  saints.  She 
could  not  help  it.  It  was  not  her  fault  that  everything 
about  her  had  a  sort  of  facility  for  sliding  into  trimly  fan 
ciful  arrangement  —  that  her  little  hats  would  sit  so  jaun 
tily  on  her  pretty  head,  that  her  foot  and  ankle  had  such 
a  provoking  neatness,  and  that  her  daintily  gloved  hands 
had  a  hundred  little  graceful  movements  in  a  moment. 
Then  her  hair  had  numberless  mutinous  little  curly- wurlies, 
and  flew  of  itself  into  the  golden  mists  of  modern  fashion; 
and  her  almond-shaped  hazel  eyes  had  a  trick  of  glancing 


ME.   ST.   JOHN  97 

like  a  bird's,  and  she  looked  always  as  if  a  smile  might 
break  out  at  any  moment,  even  on  solemn  occasions;  all 
which  were  traits  to  inspire  doubt  in  the  mind  of  an  ear 
nest  young  clergyman,  in  whose  study  the  pictures  of  holy 
women  were  always  lean,  long-favored,  with  eyes  rolled 
up,  and  looking  as  if  they  never  had  heard  of  a  French  hat 
or  a  pair  of  gaiter  boots.  He  watched  her  the  first  Sunday 
that  she  sat  at  the  head  of  her  class,  looking  for  all  the 
world  like  a  serious-minded  canary-bird,  and  wondered 
whether  so  evidently  airy  and  worldly  a  little  creature 
would  adapt  herself  to  the  earnest  work  before  her;  but 
she  did  succeed  in  holding  a  set  of  unpromising  street  girls 
in  a  sort  of  enchanted  state  while  she  chippered  to  them 
in  various  little  persuasive  intonations,  made  them  say  cate 
chism  after  her,  and  then  told  them  stories  that  were  not 
in  any  prayer-book.  After  a  little  observation,  he  was 
convinced  that  she  would  "do."  But  the  habit  of  watch 
fulness  continued ! 

On  this  day,  as  Jim  had  suggested  the  subject,  Alice 
somehow  was  moved  to  remark  the  frequent  direction  of 
Mr.  St.  John's  eyes.  On  this  Sunday  Angelique  had  had 
the  misfortune  to  don  for  the  first  time  a  blue  suit,  with 
a  blue  velvet  hat  that  gave  a  brilliant  effect  to  her  golden 
hair.  In  front  of  this  hat,  nodding  with  every  motion  of 
her  head,  was  a  blue-and-gold  humming-bird.  She  wore 
a  cape  of  ermine,  and  her  class  seemed  quite  dazzled  by 
her  appearance.  Now,  Mr.  St.  John  had  worked  vigor 
ously  to  get  up  his  little  chapel  in  blue  and  gold,  gorgeous 
to  behold;  but  a  blue-and-gold  teacher  was  something  that 
there  was  no  churchly  precedent  for  —  although  if  we  look 
into  the  philosophy  of  the  thing  there  may  be  the  same 
sort  of  influence  exercised  over  street  barbarians  by  a  pret 
tily  dressed  teacher  as  by  a  prettily  dressed  church.  But 
as  Mr.  St.  John  gazed  at  Angelique,  and  wondered  whether 
it  was  quite  the  thing  for  her  to  look  so  striking,  he  saw 


98  WE   AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

a  little  incident  that  touched  his  heart.  There  was  a  poor, 
pinched,  wan-visaged  little  girl,  the  smallest  in  the  class, 
whose  face  was  deformed  by  the  scar  of  a  fearful  burn. 
She  seemed  to  be  in  a  trembling  ecstasy  at  Angie's  finery, 
and  while  she  was  busy  with  her  lesson  stealthily  laid  her 
thin  little  hand  upon  the  ermine  cape.  Immediately  she 
was  sharply  reproved  by  a  coarse,  strong,  older  sister,  who 
had  her  in  charge,  and  her  hand  rudely  twitched  back. 

Angie  turned  with  bright,  astonished  eyes,  and  seeing 
the  little  creature  cowering  with  shame,  beamed  down  on 
her  a  lovely  smile,  stooped  and  kissed  her. 

"  You  like  it,  dear  1 "  she  said  frankly.  "  Sit  up  and 
rest  your  cheek  on  it,  if  you  like,"  and  Angie  gathered  her 
up  to  her  side  and  went  on  telling  of  the  Good  Shepherd. 

Arthur  St.  John  took  the  whole  meaning  of  the  inci 
dent.  It  carried  him  back  beyond  the  catacombs  to  some 
thing  more  authentic,  even  to  HIM  who  said,  "Suffer  little 
children  to  come  unto  me,"  and  he  felt  a  strange,  new 
throb  under  his  surplice.  The  throb  alarmed  him  to  the 
degree  that  he  did  not  look  in  that  direction  again  through 
all  the  services,  though  he  certainly  did  remark  certain 
clear,  birdlike  tones  in  the  chants  with  a  singular  feeling 
of  nearness. 

Just  about  this  time  St.  John,  unconsciously  to  himself, 
was  dealing  with  forces  of  which  no  previous  experience 
of  life  had  given  him  a  conception.  He  passed  out  of  his 
vestry  and  walked  to  his  solitary  study  in  a  kind  of  maze 
of  vague  reverie,  in  which  golden  hair  and  hazel  eyes 
seemed  strangely  blent  with  moral  enthusiasms.  "What 
a  lovely  spirit ! "  he  thought ;  and  he  felt  as  if  he  would 
far  rather  have  followed  her  out  of  the  door  than  to  have 
come  to  the  cold,  solitary  sanctities  of  his  own  room. 

Mr.  St.  John's  study  was  not  the  sanctum  of  a  self- 
indulgent,  petted  clergyman,  but  rather  that  of  one  who 
took  life  in  very  serious  earnest.  His  first  experience  of 


MR.   ST.   JOHN  99 

pastoral  life  having  been  among  the  poor,  the  sight  of  the 
disabilities,  wants,  and  dangers,  the  actual  terrible  facts  of 
human  existence,  had  produced  the  effect  on  him  that  they 
often  do  on  persons  of  extreme  sensibility  and  conscien 
tiousness.  He  could  not  think  of  retaining  for  himself  an 
indulgence  or  a  luxury  while  wants  so  terrible  stared  him 
in  the  face ;  and  his  study,  consequently,  was  furnished  in 
the  ascetic  rather  than  the  aesthetic  style.  Its  only  orna 
ments  were  devotional  pictures  of  a  severe  mediaeval  type 
and  the  books  of  a  well-assorted  library.  There  was  no 
carpet;  there  were  no  lounging  chairs  or  sofas  of  ease.  In 
place  was  a  prie-dieu  of  approved  antique  pattern,  on 
which  were  two  wax  candles  and  his  Prayer-Book.  A  cru 
cifix  of  beautiful  Italian  workmanship  stood  upon  it,  and 
it  was  scrupulously  draped  with  the  appropriate  churchly 
color  of  the  season. 

As  we  have  said,  this  room  seemed  strangely  lonely  as 
he  entered  it.  He  was  tired  with  work  which  had  begun 
early  in  the  morning,  with  scarce  an  interval  of  repose, 
and  a  perversely  shocking  idea  presented  itself  to  his  mind 
—  how  pleasant  it  would  be  to  be  met  on  returning  from 
his  labors  by  just  such  a  smile  as  he  had  seen  beaming 
down  on  the  poor  little  girl. 

When  he  found  himself  out,  and  discovered  that  this 
was  where  his  thoughts  were  running  to,  he  organized  a 
manly  resistance;  and  recited  aloud,  with  unction  and 
emphasis,  Moore's  exquisite  version  of  St.  Jerome's  opin 
ion  of  what  the  woman  should  be  whom  a  true  priest 
might  love. 

"  Who  is  the  maid  my  spirit  seeks, 

Through  cold  reproof  and  slander's  blight  ? 
Has  she  Love's  roses  on  her  cheeks  ? 

Is  hers  an  eye  of  this  world's  light  ? 
No  —  wan  and  sunk  Avith  midnight  prayer 

Are  the  pale  looks  of  her  I  love  ; 
Or  if  at  times  a  light  be  there, 

Its  beam  is  kindled  from  above. 


100  WE   AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

"I  choose  not  her,  my  heart's  elect, 

From  those  who  seek  their  Maker's  shrine 
In  gems  and  garlands  proudly  deck'd 

As  if  themselves  were  things  divine. 
No  —  Heaven  but  faintly  warms  the  breast. 

That  beats  beneath  a  broider'd  veil  ; 
And  she  who  comes  in  glitt'ring  vest 

To  mourn  her  frailty,  still  is  frail. 

"  Not  so  the  faded  form  I  prize 

And  love,  because  its  bloom  is  gone; 
The  glory  in  those  sainted  eyes 

Is  all  the  grace  her  brow  puts  on. 
And  ne'er  was  Beauty's  dawn  so  bright, 

So  touching,  as  that  form's  decay 
Which,  like  the  altar's  trembling  light, 

In  holy  lustre  wastes  away." 

"Certainly,  not  in  the  least  like  her,"  he  thought,  and 
he  resolved  to  dismiss  the  little  hat  with  the  humming 
bird,  the  golden  mist  of  hair,  and  the  glancing  eyes,  into 
the  limbo  of  vain  thoughts. 

Mr.  St.  John,  like  many  another  ardent  and  sincere 
young  clergyman,  had  undertaken  to  be  shepherd  and 
bishop  of  souls  with  more  knowledge  on  every  possible 
subject  than  the  nature  of  the  men  and  women  he  was  to 
guide.  A  fastidious  taste,  scholarly  habits,  and  great  sen 
sitiveness,  had  kept  him  out  of  society  during  all  his  col 
legiate  days.  His  life  had  been  that  of  a  devout  recluse. 
He  knew  little  of  mankind,  except  the  sick  and  decrepit 
old  women,  whom  he  freely  visited,  and  who  had  for 
nothing  the  vision  of  his  handsome  face  and  the  charm  of 
his  melodious  voice  amid  the  dirt  and  discomforts  of  their 
sordid  poverty.  But  fashionable  young  women,  the  gay 
daughters  of  ease  and  luxury,  were  to  him  rather  objects 
of  suspicion  and  apprehension  than  of  attraction.  If  they 
flocked  to  his  church,  and  seemed  eager  to  enlist  in  church 
work  under  his  leadership,  he  was  determined  that  there 
should  be  no  sham  in  it.  In  sermon  after  sermon  he 
denounced  in  stringent  terms  the  folly  and  guilt  of  the 


MR.   ST.   JOHN  101 

sentimental  religion  which  makes  playthings  of  the  solemn 
rituals  of  the  Church,  which  wears  the  cross  as  a  glittering 
bauble  on  the  outside,  and  shrinks  from  every  form  of  the 
real  self-denial  which  it  symbolizes. 

Angelique,  by  nature  the  most  conscientious  of  beings, 
had  listened  to  this  eloquence  with  awful  self-condemna 
tion.  She  felt  herself  a  dreadfully  sinful  little  girl,  that 
she  had  lived  so  unprofitable  a  life  hitherto,  and  she  un 
dertook  her  Sunday-school  labors  with  an  intense  ardor. 
When  she  came  to  visit  in  the  poor  dwellings  from  whence 
her  pupils  were  drawn,  and  to  see  how  devoid  their  life 
was  of  everything  which  she  had  been  taught  to  call  com 
fort,  she  felt  wicked  and  selfish  for  enjoying  even  the 
moderate  luxuries  allowed  by  her  father's  reduced  position. 
The  allowance  that  had  been  given  her  for  her  winter 
wardrobe  seemed  to  be  more  than  she  had  a  right  to  keep 
for  herself  in  face  of  the  terrible  destitutions  she  saw. 
Secretly  she  set  herself  to  see  how  much  she  could  save 
from  it.  She  had  the  gift  of  a  quick  eye  and  of  deft 
ringers;  and  so,  after  running  through  the  fashionable 
shops  of  dresses  and  millinery  to  catch  the  ideal  of  the 
hour,  she  went  to  work  for  herself.  A  faded  merino  was 
ripped,  dyed,  and,  by  the  aid  of  clever  patterns  and  skill 
ful  hands,  transformed  into  the  stylish  blue  suit.  The 
little  blue  velvet  hat  had  been  gathered  from  the  trimmings 
of  an  old  dress.  The  humming-bird  had  been  a  necessary 
appendage,  to  cover  the  piecing  of  the  velvet;  and  thus 
the  outfit  which  had  called  up  so  many  alarmed  scruples 
in  Mr.  St.  John's  mind  was  as  completely  a  work  of  self- 
denial  and  renunciation  as  if  she  had  come  out  in  the  black 
robe  of  a  Sister  of  Charity. 

The  balance  saved  was,  in  her  own  happy  thought, 
devoted  to  a  Christmas  outfit  for  some  of  the  poorest  of 
her  scholars,  whose  mothers  struggled  hard  and  sat  up  late 
washing  and  mending  to  make  them  decent  to  be  seen  in 
Sunday-school. 


102  WE   AND  OUR  NEIGHBORS 

But  how  should  Mr.  St.  John  know  this,  which  Angie 
had  not  even  told  to  her  own  mother  and  sisters  1  To  say 
the  truth,  she  feared  that  perhaps  she  might  be  laughed  at 
as  quixotic,  or  wanting  in  good  sense,  in  going  so  much 
beyond  the  usual  standard  in  thoughtfulness  for  others, 
and,  at  any  rate,  kept  her  own  little  counsel.  Mr.  St. 
John  knew  nothing  about  women  in  that  class  of  society, 
their  works  and  ways,  where  or  how  they  got  their  dresses; 
but  he  had  a  general  impression  that  fashionable  women 
were  in  heathen  darkness,  and  spent  on  dress  fabulous 
amounts  that  might  be  given  to  the  poor.  He  had  certain 
floating  views  in  his  mind,  when  further  advanced  in  his 
ministry,  of  instituting  a  holy  sisterhood,  who  should  wear 
gray  cloaks,  and  spend  all  their  money  and  time  in  deeds 
of  charity. 

On  the  present  occasion  he  could  see  only  the  very 
patent  fact  that  Angelique's  dress  was  stylish  and  becoming 
to  an  alarming  degree;  that,  taken  in  connection  with  her 
bright  cheeks,  her  golden  hair,  and  glancing  hazel  eyes, 
she  was  to  the  full  as  worldly  an  object  as  a  bluebird,  or 
an  oriole,  or  any  of  those  brilliant  creatures  with  which  it 
has  pleased  the  Maker  of  all  to  distract  our  attention  in 
our  pilgrimage  through  this  sinful  and  dying  world. 

Angie  was  so  far  from  assuming  to  herself  any  merit  in 
this  sacrifice  that  her  only  thought  was  how  little  it  would 
do.  Had  it  been  possible  and  proper,  she  would  have 
willingly  given  her  ermine  cape  to  the  poor,  wan  little  child, 
to  whom  the  mere  touch  of  it  was  such  a  strange,  bewil 
dering  luxury;  but  she  had  within  herself  a  spice  of  prac 
tical  common  sense  which  showed  her  that  our  most  sacred 
impulses  are  not  always  to  be  literally  obeyed.  Yet,  while 
the  little  scarred  cheek  was  resting  on  her  ermine  in  such 
apparent  bliss,  there  mingled  in  with  the  thread  of  her 
instructions  to  the  children  a  determination  next  day  to 
appraise  cheap  furs,  and  see  if  she  could  not  bless  the  little 
one  with  a  cape  of  her  very  own. 


MR.   ST.   JOHX  103 

Angle's  quiet  common  sense  always  stood  her  in  good 
stead  in  moderating  her  enthusiasms,  and  even  carried  her 
at  times  to  the  length  of  differing  with  the  rector,  to  whom 
she  looked  up  as  an  angel  guide.  For  example,  when  he 
had  expatiated  on  the  propriety  and  superior  sanctity  of 
coming  fasting  to  the  Holy  Communion,  sensible  Angie  had 
demurred. 

"I  must  teach  my  class,"  she  pleaded  with  herself;  "and 
if  I  should  go  all  that  long  way  up  to  church  without 
rny  breakfast,  I  should  have  such  a  sick-headache  that  I 
couldn't  do  anything  properly  for  them.  I'm  always 
cross  and  stupid  when  that  comes  on." 

Thus  Angie  concluded  by  her  own  little  light,  in  her 
own  separate  way,  that  "to  do  good  was  better  than  sacri 
fice."  Nevertheless,  she  supposed  all  this  was  because  she 
was  so  low  down  in  the  moral  scale,  for  did  not  Mr.  St. 
John  fast  1  —  doubtless  it  gave  him  headache,  but  he  was 
so  good  he  went  on  just  as  well  with  a  headache  as  with 
out;  and  Angie  felt  how  far  she  must  rise  to  be  like  that. 

"There  now,"  said  Jim  Fellows  triumphantly  to  Alice, 
as  they  were  coming  home,  "didn't  you  see  your  angel  of 
the  churches  looking  in  a  certain  direction  this  morning  1 " 

Alice  had,  as  a  last  resort,  a  fund  of  reserved  dignity 
which  she  could  draw  upon  whenever  she  was  really  and 
deeply  in  earnest. 

"Jim,"  she  said,  without  a  smile,  and  in  a  grave  tone, 
"I  have  confidence  that  you  are  a  true  friend  to  us  all." 

"Well,  I  hope  so,"  said  Jim  wonderingly. 

"And  you  are  too  kind-hearted  and  considerate  to  wish 
to  give  real  pain." 

"Certainly  I  am." 

"Well,  then,  promise  me  never  to  make  remarks  of  that 
nature  again,  to  me  or  anybody  else,  about  Angie  and  Mr. 
St.  John.  It  would  be  more  distressing  and  annoying  to 


104  WE  AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

her  than  anything  you  could  do;  and  the  dear  child  is 
now  perfectly  simple-hearted  and  unconstrained,  and  cheer 
ful  as  a  bird  in  her  work.  The  least  intimation  of  this 
kind  might  make  her  conscious  and  uncomfortable,  and 
spoil  it  all.  So  promise  me  now." 

Jim  eyed  his  fair  monitress  with  the  kind  of  wicked 
twinkle  a  naughty  boy  gives  to  his  mother,  to  ascertain  if 
she  is  really  in  earnest,  but  Alice  maintained  a  brow  of 
"  sweet,  austere  composure, "  and  looked  as  if  she  expected 
to  be  obeyed. 

"Well,  I  perfectly  long  for  a  hit  at  St.  John,"  he  said, 
"but  if  you  say  so,  so  it  must  be." 

"  You  promise  on  your  honor  1 "  insisted  Alice. 

"Yes,  I  promise  on  my  honor;  so  there!"  said  Jim. 
"I  wont  even  wink  an  eyelid  in  that  direction.  I  '11  make 
a  perfect  stock  and  stone  of  myself.  But,"  he  added, 
"Jim  can  have  his  thoughts  for  all  that." 

Alice  was  not  exactly  satisfied  with  the  position  assumed 
by  her  disciple;  she  therefore  proceeded  to  fortify  him  in 
grace  by  some  farther  observations,  delivered  in  a  very 
serious  tone. 

"For  my  part,"  she  said,  "I  think  nothing  is  in  such 
bad  taste,  to  say  the  least,  as  the  foolish  way  in  which 
some  young  people  will  allow  themselves  to  talk  and  think 
about  an  unmarried  young  clergyman,  while  he  is  absorbed 
in  duties  so  serious  and  has  feelings  so  far  above  their 
comprehension.  The  very  idea  or  suggestion  of  a  flirtation 
between  a  clergyman  and  one  of  his  flock  is  utterly  repul 
sive  and  disagreeable." 

Here  Jim,  with  a  meek  gravity  of  face,  simply  inter 
posed  the  question :  — 

"What  is  flirtation?" 

"You  know,  now,  as  well  as  I  do,"  said  Alice,  with 
heightened  color.  "You  needn't  pretend  you  don't." 

"Oh,"  said  Jim.      "Well,  then,  I  suppose  I  do."     And 


MR.   ST.   JOHN  105 

the  two  walked  on  in  silence,  for  some  way;  Jim  with  an 
air  of  serious  humility,  as  if  in  a  deep  study,  and  Alice 
with  cheeks  getting  redder  and  redder  with  vexation. 

"Now,  Jim,"  she  said  at  last,  "you  are  very  provok 
ing." 

"I'm  sure  I  give  in  to  everything  you  say,"  said  Jim 
in  an  injured  tone. 

"But  you  act  just  as  if  you  were  making  fun  all  the 
time;  and  you  know  you  are." 

"Upon  my  word  I  don't  know  what  you  mean.  I  have 
assented  to  every  word  you  said  —  given  up  to  you  hook 
and  line  —  and  now  you're  not  pleased.  I  tell  you,  it's 
rough  on  a  fellow." 

"Oh,  come,"  said  Alice,  laughing  at  the  absurdity  of 
the  quarrel;  "there  's  no  use  in  scolding  you." 

Jim  laughed  too,  and  felt  triumphant;  and  just  then 
they  turned  a  corner  and  met  Aunt  Maria  coming  from 
church. 


CHAPTEE  XI 

AUNT    MARIA    CLEARS    HER    CONSCIENCE 

WHEN  Mrs.  Wouvermans  met  our  young  friends,  she 
was  just  returning  home  after  performing  her  morning 
devotions  in  one  of  the  most  time-honored  churches  in  New 
York.  She  was  as  thorough  and  faithful  in  her  notions  of 
religion  as  of  housekeeping.  She  adhered  strictly  to  her 
own  church,  in  which  undeniably  none  but  ancient  and 
respectable  families  worshiped,  and  where  she  was  perfectly 
sure  that  whatever  of  dress  or  deportment  she  saw  was 
certain  to  be  the  correct  thing. 

It  was  a  church  of  eminent  propriety.  It  was  large  and 
lofty,  with  long-drawn  aisles  and  excellent  sleeping  accom 
modations,  where  the  worshipers  were  assisted  to  dream  of 
heaven  by  every  appliance  of  sweet  music,  and  not  rudely 
shaken  in  their  slumbers  by  any  obtrusiveness  on  the  part 
of  the  rector. 

In  fact,  everything  about  the  services  of  this  church  was 
thoroughly  toned  down  by  good  breeding.  The  responses 
of  the  worshipers  were  given  in  decorous  whispers  that 
scarcely  disturbed  the  solemn  stillness;  for  when  a  congre 
gation  of  the  best-fed  and  best- bred  people  of  New  York 
on  their  knees  declare  themselves  "miserable  sinners,"  it 
is  a  matter  of  delicacy  to  make  as  little  disturbance  about 
it  as  possible.  A  well-paid  choir  of  the  finest  professional 
singers  took  the  whole  responsibility  of  praising  God  into 
their  own  hands,  so  that  the  respectable  audience  were 
relieved  from  any  necessity  of  exertion  in  that  depart 
ment.  As  the  most  brilliant  lights  of  the  opera  were  from 


AUNT  MARIA  CLEARS   HER  CONSCIENCE  107 

time  to  time  engaged  to  render  the  more  solemn  parts  of 
the  service,  flocks  of  sinners  who  otherwise  would  never 
have  entered  a  church  crowded  to  hear  these  "morning 
stars  sing  together ; "  let  us  hope,  to  their  great  edification. 
The  sermons  of  the  rector,  delivered  in  the  dim  perspec 
tive,  had  a  plaintive,  far-off  sound,  as  a  voice  of  one  "cry 
ing  in  the  wilderness,"  and  crying  at  a  very  great  distance. 
This  was  in  part  owing  to  the  fact  that  the  church,  having 
been  built  after  an  old  English  ecclesiastical  model  in  days 
when  English  churches  were  used  only  for  processional 
services,  was  entirely  unadapted  for  any  purposes  of  public 
speaking,  so  that  a  man's  voice  had  about  as  good  chance 
of  effect  in  it  as  if  he  spoke  anywhere  in  the  thoroughfares 
of  New  York. 

The  rector,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Gushing,  was  a  good,  amiable 
man;  middle-aged,  adipose,  discreet,  devoted  to  "our  ex 
cellent  liturgy,'7  and  from  his  heart  opposed  to  anything 
which  made  trouble.  From  the  remote  distances  whence 
his  short  Sunday  cry  was  uttered,  he  appeared  moved  to 
send  protests  against  two  things:  first,  the  tendency  to 
philosophical  speculation  and  the  skeptical  humanitarian 
theories  of  the  age;  and  second,  against  Romanizing  ten 
dencies  in  the  church.  The  young  missionary,  St.  John, 
who  got  up  to  early  services  at  conventual  hours,  and  had 
prayers  every  morning  and  evening,  and  Communion  every 
Sunday  and  every  Saint's  day  —  who  fasted  on  all  the  Em 
ber  Days,  and  called  on  other  people  to  fast,  and  seemed 
literally  to  pray  without  ceasing  —  appeared  to  him  a  brist 
ling  impersonation  of  the  Romanizing  tendencies  of  the 
age,  and  one  of  those  who  troubled  Israel.  The  fact  that 
many  of  the  young  ladies  of  the  old  established  church  over 
which  the  good  Doctor  ministered  were  drawn  to  flock  up 
to  the  services  of  this  disturber  gave  to  him  a  realizing 
sense  of  the  danger  to  which  the  whole  Church  was  thereby 
exposed. 


108  WE  AND  OUR  NEIGHBORS 

On  this  particular  morning  he  had  selected  that  well- 
worn  text,  "Are  not  Abana  and  Pharpar,  rivers  of  Damas 
cus,  better  than  all  the  waters  of  Jordan  ?  May  I  not  wash 
in  them  and  be  clean  ?  " 

Of  course,  like  everybody  who  preaches  on  this  text,  he 
assumed  that  Jordan  was  the  true  faith  as  he  preached  it, 
and  that  the  rivers  of  Damascus  were  any  and  every  faith 
that  diverged  from  his  own.  These  improper  and  profane 
rivers  were  various.  There  was,  of  course,  modern  skepti 
cism  with  profuse  allusions  to  Darwin;  there  were  all  sorts 
of  modern  humanitarian  and  social  reforms;  and  there  was 
in  the  bosom  of  the  very  Church  herself,  he  regretted  to 
state,  a  disposition  to  go  off  after  the  Abana  and  Pharpar 
of  Romish  abominations.  All  these  were  to  be  avoided, 
and  people  were  to  walk  in  those  quiet  paths  of  godliness 
in  which  they  had  been  brought  up  to  walk,  and,  in  short, 
do  pretty  much  as  they  had  been  doing,  undisturbed  by 
new  notions,  or  movements,  or  ideas,  whether  out  of  the 
Church  or  in. 

And  as  he  plaintively  recited  these  exhortations,  his 
voice  coming  in  a  solemn  and  spectral  tone  adown  the  far- 
off  aisles,  it  seemed  to  give  a  dreamy  and  unreal  effect 
even  to  the  brisk  modern  controversies  and  disturbances 
which  formed  his  theme.  The  gorgeous,  many-colored 
lights  streamed  silently  the  while  through  the  stained  win 
dows,  turning  the  bald  head  of  one  ancient  church- warden 
yellow,  and  of  another  green,  and  of  another  purple,  while 
the  white  feathers  on  Mrs.  Demas's  bonnet  passed  grad 
ually  through  successive  tints  of  the  rainbow;  and  the 
audience  dozed  off  at  intervals,  and  awakened  again  to  find 
the  rector  at  another  head,  and  talking  about  something 
else ;  and  so  on  till  the  closing  ascription  to  the  Trinity, 
when  everybody  rose  with  a  solemn  sense  that  something 
or  other  was  over.  The  greater  part  of  the  audience  in 
the  intervals  of  somnolency  congratulated  themselves  that 


AUNT  MAEIA   CLEARS   HER   CONSCIENCE  109 

they  were  in  no  danger  of  running  after  new  ideas,  and 
thanked  God  that  they  never  speculated  about  philosophy. 
As  to  turning  out  to  daily  morning  and  evening  prayers, 
or  fasting  on  any  days  whatsoever,  or  going  into  any  ex 
travagant  excesses  of  devotion  and  self-sacrifice,  they  were 
only  too  happy  to  find  that  it  was  their  duty  to  resist  the 
very  suggestion  as  tending  directly  to  Romanism.  The 
true  Jordan,  they  were  happy  to  find,  ran  directly  through 
their  own  particular  church,  and  they  had  only  to  continue 
their  stated  Sunday  naps  on  its  borders  as  before. 

Mrs.  Wouvermans,  however,  was  not  of  a  dozing  or 
dreamy  nature.  Her  mind,  such  as  it  was,  was  always 
wide  awake  and  cognizant  of  what  she  was  about.  She 
was  not  susceptible  of  a  dreamy  state;  to  use  an  idiomatic 
phrase,  she  was  always  up  and  dressed;  everything  in  her 
mental  vision  was  clear-cut  and  exact.  The  sermon  was 
intensified  in  its  effect  upon  her  by  the  state  of  the  Van 
Arsdel  pew,  of  which  she  was  on  this  Sunday  the  only 
occupant.  The  fact  was,  that  the  ancient  and  respectable 
church  in  which  she  worshiped  had  just  been  through  a 
contest,  in  which  Mr.  Simons,  a  young  assistant  rector, 
had  been  attempting  to  introduce  some  of  the  very  prac 
tices  hinted  at  in  the  discourse.  This  fervid  young  man, 
full  of  fire  and  enthusiasm,  had  incautiously  been  made 
associate  rector  for  this  church  at  the  time  when  Dr.  Gush 
ing  had  been  sent  to  Europe  to  recover  from  a  bronchial 
attack.  He  was  young,  earnest,  and  eloquent,  and  pos 
sessed  with  the  idea  that  all  those  burning  words  and 
phrases  in  the  Prayer-Book,  which  had  dropped  like  pre 
cious  gems  dyed  with  the  heart's  blood  of  saints  and  mar 
tyrs,  ought  to  mean  something  more  than  they  seemed  to 
do  for  modern  Christians.  Without  introducing  any  new 
ritual,  he  set  himself  to  make  vivid  and  imperative  every 
doctrine  and  direction  of  the  Prayer-Book,  and  to  bring  the 
drowsy  company  of  pewholders  somewhere  up  within 


110  WE  AND  OUR  NEIGHBORS 

sight  of  the  plane  of  the  glorious  company  of  apostles  and 
the  noble  army  of  martyrs  with  whose  blood  it  was  sealed. 
He  labored  and  preached,  and  strove  and  prayed,  tugging 
at  the  drowsy  old  church,  like  Pegasus  harnessed  to  a  stone 
cart.  He  set  up  morning  and  evening  prayers,  had  Com 
munion  every  Sunday,  and  annoyed  old  rich  saints  by 
suggesting  that  it  was  their  duty  to  build  mission  chapels 
and  carry  on  mission  works,  after  the  pattern  of  St.  Paul 
and  other  irrelevant  and  excessive  worthies,  who  in  their 
time  were  accused  of  turning  the  world  upside  down.  Of 
course  there  was  resistance  and  conflict,  and  more  life  in 
the  old  church  than  it  had  known  for  years;  but  the  con 
flict  became  at  last  so  wearisome  that,  on  Mr.  Gushing' s 
return  from  Europe,  the  young  angel  spread  his  wings  and 
fled  away  to  a  more  congenial  parish  in  a  neighboring  city. 
But  many  in  whom  his  labors  had  wakened  a  craving  for 
something  real  and  earnest  in  religion  strayed  off"  to  other 
churches,  and  notably  the  younger  members  of  the  Van 
Arsdel  family,  to  the  no  small  scandal  of  Aunt  Maria. 

The  Van  Arsdel  pew  was  a  perfect  fort  and  intrenchment 
of  respectability.  It  was  a  great  high,  square  wall-pew, 
well  cushioned  and  ample,  with  an  imposing  array  of 
Pray  er- Books ;  there  was  room  in  it  for  a  regiment  of 
saints,  and  here  Aunt  Maria  sat  on  this  pleasant  Sunday 
listening  to  the  dangers  of  the  Church,  all  alone.  She  felt, 
in  a  measure,  like  Elijah  the  Tishbite,  as  if  she  only  were 
left  to  stand  up  for  the  altars  of  her  faith.  Mrs.  Wouver- 
mans  was  not  a  person  to  let  an  evil  run  on  very  far  with 
out  a  protest.  "While  she  was  musing  the  fire  burned," 
and  when  she  had  again  mounted  guard  in  the  pew  at  after 
noon  service,  and  still  found  herself  alone,  she  resolved  to 
clear  her  conscience;  and  so  she  walked  straight  up  to 
Nelly's,  to  see  why  none  of  them  were  at  church. 

"It's  a  shame,  Nelly,  a  perfect  shame!  There  wasn't 
a  creature  but  myself  in  our  pew  to-day,  and  good  Dr. 
dishing  giving  such  a  sermon  this  morning!  " 


AUNT  MARIA  CLEAES   HER  CONSCIENCE  111 

This  to  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel,  whom  she  found  luxuriously 
ensconced  on  a  sofa  drawn  up  before  the  fire  in  her  bed 
room. 

"Ah,  well,  the  fact  is,  Maria,  I  had  such  a  headache 
this  morning,"  replied  she  plaintively. 

"  Well,  then,  you  ought  to  have  made  your  husband  and 
family  go;  somebody  ought  to  be  there!  It  positively 
isn't  respectable." 

"Ah,  well,  Maria,  my  husband,  poor  man,  gets  so  tired 
and  worn  out  with  his  week's  work,  I  haven't  a  heart  to 
get  him  up  early  enough  for  morning  service.  Mr.  Van 
Arsdel  isn't  feeling  quite  well  lately;  he  hasn't  been  out 
at  all  to-day." 

"Well,  there  are  the  girls,  Alice  and  Angelique  and 
Marie,  where  are  they  ?  All  going  up  to  that  old  Popish, 
ritualistic  chapel,  I  suppose.  It 's  too  bad.  Now,  that 's 
all  the  result  of  Mr.  Simons' s  imprudences.  I  told  you, 
in  the  time  of  it,  just  what  it  would  lead  to.  It  leads 
straight  to  Rome,  just  as  I  said.  Mr.  Simons  set  them 
a-going,  and  now  he  is  gone  and  they  go  where  they  have 
lighted  candles  on  the  altar  every  Sunday,  and  Mr.  St. 
John  prays  with  his  back  to  them,  and  has  processions, 
and  wears  all  sorts  of  heathenish  robes ;  and  your  daughters 
go  there,  Nelly."  The  very  plumes  in  Aunt  Maria's  hat 
nodded  with  warning  energy  as  she  spoke. 

"  Are  you  sure  the  candles  are  lighted  ?  "  said  Mrs.  Van 
Arsdel,  sitting  up  with  a  weak  show  of  protest,  and  look 
ing  gravely  into  the  fire.  "I  was  up  there  once,  and  there 
were  candles  on  the  altar,  to  be  sure,  but  they  were  not 
lighted." 

"  They  are  lighted, "  said  Mrs.  WTouvermans,  with  awful 
precision.  "I've  been  up  there  myself  and  seen  them. 
Now,  how  can  you  let  your  children  run  at  loose  ends  so, 
Nelly  ?  I  only  wish  you  had  heard  the  sermon  this  morn 
ing.  He  showed  the  danger  of  running  into  Popery;  and 


112  WE   AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

it  really  was  enough  to  make  one's  blood  run  cold  to  hear 
how  those  infidels  are  attacking  the  Church,  carrying  all 
before  them;  and  then  to  think  that  the  only  true  Church 
should  be  all  getting  divided  and  mixed  up  and  running 
after  Komanism!  It 's  perfectly  awful." 

"Well,  I  don't  know  what  we  can  do,"  said  Mrs.  Van 
Arsdel  helplessly. 

"And  we've  got  both  kinds  of  trouble  in  our  family. 
Eva's  husband  is  reading  all  What's-his-name's  works  — 
that  Evolution  man,  and  all  that;  and  then  Eva  and  the 
girls  going  after  this  St.  John  —  and  he  's  leading  them  as 
straight  to  Rome  as  they  can  go." 

Poor  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel  was  somewhat  fluttered  by  this 
alarming  view  of  the  case,  and  clasped  her  pretty,  fat, 
white  hands,  that  glittered  with  rings  like  lilies  with  dew- 
drops,  and  looked  the  image  of  gentle,  incapable  perplexity. 

"I  don't  believe  Harry  is  an  infidel,"  she  said  at  last. 
"He  has  to  read  Darwin  and  all  those  things,  because  he 
has  to  talk  about  them  in  the  magazine;  and  as  to  Mr.  St. 
John  —  you  know  Eva  is  delicate  and  can't  walk  so  far  as 
our  church,  and  this  is  right  round  the  corner  from  her; 
and  Mr.  St.  John  is  a  good  man.  He  does  ever  so  much 
for  the  poor,  and  almost  supports  a  mission  there;  and  the 
Bishop  does  n't  forbid  him,  and  if  the  Bishop  thought  there 
was  any  danger  he  would." 

"Well,  I  can't  think,  for  my  part,  what  our  Bishop  can 
be  thinking  of,"  said  Aunt  Maria,  who  was  braced  up  to 
an  extraordinary  degree  by  the  sermon  of  the  morning. 
"I  don't  see  how  he  can  let  them  go  on  so  —  with  candles, 
and  processions,  and  heathen  robes,  and  all  that.  I  'd 
process  'em  out  of  the  Church  in  quick  time.  If  I  were 
he,  I  'd  have  all  that  sort  of  trumpery  cleaned  out  at  once; 
for  just  see  where  it  leads  to !  I  may  not  be  as  good  a 
Christian  as  I  ought  to  be  —  we  all  have  our  shortcomings 
—  but  one  thing  I  know,  I  do  hate  the  Catholics  and  all 


AUNT  MARIA  CLEARS   HER  CONSCIENCE  113 

that  belongs  to  them;  and  I 'd  no  more  have  such  goings 
on  in  my  diocese  than  I  'd  have  moths  in  my  carpet!  I  'd 
sweep  'em  right  out!  "  said  Aunt  Maria,  with  a  gesture  as 
if  she  held  the  besom  of  destruction. 

Mrs.  Wouvermans  belonged  to  a  not  uncommon  class  of 
Christians,  whose  evidences  of  piety  are  more  vigorous  in 
hating  than  in  loving.  There  is  no  manner  of  doubt  that 
she  would  have  made  good  her  word  had  she  been  a  bishop. 

"Oh,  well,  Maria,"  said  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel,  drawing  her 
knit  zephyr  shawl  about  her  with  a  sort  of  consolatory 
movement,  and  settling  herself  cosily  back  on  her  sofa, 
"it 's  evident  that  the  Bishop  doesn't  see  just  as  you  do, 
and  I  am  content  to  allow  what  he  does.  As  to  the  girls, 
they  are  old  enough  to  judge  for  themselves,  and,  besides, 
I  think  they  are  doing  some  good  by  teaching  in  that 
mission  school.  I  hope  so,  at  least.  Anyway,  I  couldn't 
help  it  if  I  would.  But,  do  tell  me,  did  Mrs.  Demas  have 
on  her  new  bonnet  1  " 

"Yes,  she  did,"  said  Aunt  Maria,  with  vigor;  "and  I 
can  tell  you  it 's  a  perfect  fright,  if  it  did  come  from  Paris. 
Another  thing  I  saw  —  fringes  have  come  round  again! 
Mrs.  Lamar's  new  cloak  was  trimmed  with  fringe." 

"You  don't  say  so,"  said  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel,  contemplat 
ing  all  the  possible  consequences  of  this  change.  "There 
was  another  reason  why  I  couldn't  go  out  this  morning," 
«he  added  rather  irrelevantly  —  "I  had  no  bonnet.  Adri- 
enne  couldn't  get  the  kind  of  ruche  necessary  to  finish  it 
till  next  week,  and  the  old  one  is  too  shabby.  Were  the 
Stuy  vesants  out  ?  " 

"  Oh  yes,  in  full  force.  She  has  the  same  bonnet  she 
wore  last  year,  done  over  with  a  new  feather." 

"Oh,  well,  the  Stuy  vesants  can  do  as  they  please,"  said 
Mrs.  Van  Arsdel;  "everybody  knows  who  they  are,  let 
them  wear  what  they  will." 

"Emma  Stuyvesant  had   a   new  Paris  hat  and  a  sack 


114  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

trimmed  with  bullion  fringe, "  continued  Aunt  Maria.  "  I 
thought  I  'd  tell  you,  because  you  can  use  what  was  on 
your  velvet  dress  over  again;  it 's  just  as  good  as  ever." 

"So  I  can "  —  and  for  a  moment  the  great  advantage  of 
going  punctually  to  church  appeared  to  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel. 
"Did  you  see  Sophie  Sydney? " 

"  Yes.  She  was  gorgeous  in  a  mauve  suit  with  hat  to 
match ;  but  she  has  gone  off  terribly  in  her  looks  —  yellow 
as  a  lemon." 

"Who  else  did  you  see?"  said  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel,  who 
liked  this  topic  of  conversation  better  than  the  dangers 
of  the  Church. 

"Oh,  well,  the  Davenports  were  there,  and  the  Living 
stones,  and  of  course  Polly  Elmore,  with  her  tribe,  looking 
like  birds  of  paradise.  The  amount  of  time  and  money 
and  thought  that  family  gives  to  dress  is  enormous !  John 
Davenport  stopped  and  spoke  to  me  coming  out  of  church. 
He  says,  '  Seems  to  me,  Mrs.  Wouvermans,  your  young 
ladies  have  deserted  us;  you  mustn't  suffer  them  to  stray 
from  the  fold, '  says  he.  I  saw  he  had  his  eye  on  our  pew 
when  he  first  came  into  church." 

"I  think,  Maria,  you  really  are  quite  absurd  in  your 
suspicions  about  that  man,"  said  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel.  "I 
don't  think  there  Js  anything  in  it." 

"Well,  just  wait  now  and  see.  I  know  more  about  it 
than  you  do.  If  only  Alice  manages  her  cards  right,  she 
can  get  that  man." 

"Alice  will  never  manage  cards  for  any  purpose.  She 
is  too  proud  for  that.  She  has  n't  a  bit  of  policy." 

"And  there  was  that  Jim  Fellows  waiting  on  her  home. 
I  met  him  this  morning,  just  as  I  turned  the  corner." 

"Well,  Alice  tries  to  exert  a  good  influence  over  Jim, 
and  has  got  him  to  teach  in  Mr.  St.  John's  Sunday-school." 

"  Fiddlesticks !     What  does  he  care  for  Sunday-school  1 " 

"Well,  the  girls  all  say  that  he  does  nicely.      He  has 


AUNT  MARIA  CLEARS   HER   CONSCIENCE  115 

more  influence  over  that  class  of  boys  than  anybody  else 
would." 

"Likely!  'Set  a  rogue  to  catch  a  rogue,'  "  said  Aunt 
Maria.  "It's  his  being  seen  so  much  with  Alice  that 
I  'm  thinking  of.  You  may  depend  upon  it,  it  has  a  bad 
effect." 

Mrs.  Van  Arsdel  dreaded  the  setting  of  her  sister's  mind 
in  this  direction,  so  by  way  of  effecting  a  diversion  she 
rang  and  inquired  when  tea  would  be  ready.  As  the  door 
opened,  the  sound  of  very  merry  singing  came  upstairs. 
Angelique  was  seated  at  the  piano  and  playing  tunes  out 
of  one  of  the  Sunday-school  manuals,  and  the  whole  set 
were  singing  with  might  and  main.  Jim's  tenor  could  be 
heard  above  all  the  rest. 

"Why,  is  that  fellow  here?"  said  Aunt  Maria. 

"Yes,"  said  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel;  "he  very  often  stays  to 
tea  with  us  Sunday  nights,  and  he  and  the  girls  sing  hymns 
together. " 

"Hymns!"  said  Aunt  Maria.  "I  should  call  that  a 
regular  jollification  that  they  are  having  down  there." 

"Oh,  well,  Maria,  they  are  singing  children's  tunes  out 
of  one  of  the  little  Sunday-school  manuals.  You  know 
children's  tunes  are  so  different  from  old-fashioned  psalm 
tunes!" 

Just  then  the  choir  below  struck  up 

"  Onward,  Christian  soldier," 

with  a  marching  energy  and  a  vivacity  that  were  positively 
startling,  and,  to  be  sure,  not  in  the  least  like  the  old, 
long-drawn,  dolorous  strains  once  supposed  to  be  peculiar 
to  devotion.  In  fact,  one  of  the  greatest  signs  of  progress 
in  our  modern  tunes  is  the  bursting  forth  of  religious 
thought  and  feeling  in  childhood  and  youth  in  strains  gay 
and  airy  as  hope  and  happiness  —  melodies  that  might  have 
been  learned  of  those  bright  little  "fowls  of  the  air,"  of 
whom  the  Master  bade  us  take  lessons,  so  that  a  company 


116  WE  AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

of  wholesome,  healthy,  right-minded  young  people  can  now 
get  together  and  express  themselves  in  songs  of  joy,  and 
hope,  and  energy,  such  as  childhood  and  youth  ought  to  he 
full  of. 

Let  those  who  will  talk  of  the  decay  of  Christian  faith 
in  our  day;  so  long  as  songs  about  Jesus  and  his  love  are 
bursting  forth  on  every  hand,  thick  as  violets  and  apple 
blossoms  in  June,  so  long  as  the  little  Sunday-school  song- 
books  sell  by  thousands  and  by  millions,  and  spring  forth 
every  year  in  increasing  numbers,  so  long  will  it  appear 
that  faith  is  ever  fresh-springing  and  vital.  It  was  the 
little  children  in  the  temple  who  cried,  "Hosanna  to  the 
Son  of  David,"  when  chief  priests  and  scribes  were  scowl 
ing  and  saying,  "Master,  forbid  them,"  and  doubtless  the 
same  dear  Master  loves  to  hear  these  child-songs  now  as 
then. 

At  all  events,  our  little  party  were  having  a  gay  and 
festive  time  over  two  or  three  new  collections  of  Clarion, 
Golden  Chain,  Golden  Shower,  or  what  not,  of  which  Jim 
had  brought  a  pocketful  for  the  girls  to  try,  and  certainly 
the  melodies  as  they  came  up  were  bright  and  lively  and 
pretty  enough  to  stir  one's  blood  pleasantly.  In  fact,  both 
Aunt  Maria  and  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel  were  content  for  a  season 
to  leave  the  door  open  and  listen. 

"You  see,"  said  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel,  "Jim  is  such  a  plea 
sant,  convenient,  obliging  fellow,  and  has  done  so  many 
civil  turns  for  the  family,  that  we  quite  make  him  at  home 
here;  we  don't  mind  him  at  all.  It 's  a  pleasant  thing, 
too,  and  a  convenience,  now  the  boys  are  gone,  to  have 
some  young  man  that  one  feels  perfectly  free  with  to  wait 
on  the  girls;  and  where  there  are  so  many  of  them  there  's 
less  danger  of  anything  particular.  There 's  no  earthly 
danger  of  Alice's  being  specially  interested  in  Jim.  He 
isn't  at  all  the  person  she  would  ever  think  seriously  of, 
though  she  likes  him  as  a  friend." 


AUNT  MARIA  CLEARS   HER  CONSCIENCE  117 

Mrs.  Wouvermans  apparently  acquiesced  for  the  time  in 
this  reasoning,  but  secretly  resolved  to  watch  appearances 
narrowly  this  evening,  and,  if  she  saw  what  warranted  the 
movement,  to  take  the  responsibility  of  the  case  into  her 
own  hands  forthwith.  Her  perfect  immutable  and  tranquil 
certainty  that  she  was  the  proper  person  to  manage  any 
thing  within  the  sphere  of  her  vision  gave  her  courage  to 
go  forward  in  spite  of  the  fears  and  remonstrances  of  any 
who  might  have  claimed  that  they  were  parties  concerned. 

Mr.  Jim  Fellows  was  one  of  those  persons  in  whom  a 
sense  of  humor  operates  as  a  subtle  lubricating  oil  through 
all  the  internal  machinery  of  the  mind,  causing  all  which 
might  otherwise  have  jarred  or  grated  to  slide  easily. 
Many  things  which  would  be  a  torture  to  more  earnest 
people  were  to  him  a  source  of  amusement.  In  fact,  humor 
was  so  far  a  leading  faculty  that  it  was  difficult  to  keep 
him  within  limits  of  propriety  and  decorum,  and  prevent 
him  from  racing  off  at  unsuitable  periods  like  a  kitten  after 
a  pinball,  skipping  over  all  solemnities  of  etiquette  and 
decorum.  He  had  not  been  so  long  intimate  in  the  family 
without  perfectly  taking  the  measure  of  so  very  active  and 
forth- putting  a  member  as  Aunt  Maria.  He  knew  exactly 
—  as  well  as  if  she  had  told  him  —  how  she  regarded  him, 
for  his  knowledge  of  character  was  not  the  result  of  study, 
but  that  sort  of  clear  sight  which  in  persons  of  quick  per 
ceptive  organs  seems  like  a  second  sense.  He  saw  into 
persons  without  an  effort,  and  what  he  saw  for  the  most 
part  only  amused  him. 

He  perceived  immediately  on  sitting  down  to  tea  that 
he  was  under  the  glance  of  Mrs.  Wouvermans 's  watchful 
and  critical  eye,  and  the  result  was  that  he  became  full  and 
ready  to  boil  over  with  wicked  drollery.  With  an  appar 
ently  grave  face,  without  passing  the  limits  of  the  most 
ceremonious  politeness  and  decorum,  he  contrived,  by  a 
thousand  fleeting  indescribable  turns  and  sliding  intonations 


118  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

and  adroit  movements,  to  get  all  the  girls  into  a  tempest  of 
suppressed  gayety.  There  are  wicked  rogues  known  to  us 
all  who  have  this  magical  power  of  making  those  around 
them  burst  out  into  indiscreet  sallies  of  laughter,  while 
they  retain  the  most  edifying  and  innocent  air  of  gravity. 
Seated  next  to  Aunt  Maria,  Jim  managed,  by  most  devoted 
attention  and  reverential  listening,  to  draw  from  her  a  zeal 
ous  analysis  of  the  morning  sermon,  which  she  gave  with 
the  more  heat  and  vigor,  hoping  thereby  to  reprove  the 
stray  sheep  who  had  thus  broken  boundaries. 

Her  views  of  the  danger  of  modern  speculation,  and  her 
hearty  measures  for  its  repression,  were  given  with  an  ear 
nestness  that  was  from  the  heart. 

"I  can't  understand  what  anybody  wants  to  have  these 
controversies  for,  and  listen  to  these  infidel  philosophers. 
I  never  doubt.  I  never  have  doubted.  I  don't  think  I 
have  altered  an  iota  of  my  religious  faith  since  I  was  seven 
years  old ;  and  if  I  had  the  control  of  things,  I  'd  put  a 
stop  to  all  this  sort  of  fuss." 

"You  then  would  side  with  his  Holiness  the  Pope," 
said  Jim.  "That 's  precisely  the  ground  of  his  last  allocu 
tion." 

"No,  indeed,  I  shouldn't.  I  think  Popery  is  worse 
yet  —  it 's  terrible !  Dr.  Gushing  showed  that  this  morn 
ing,  and  it's  the  greatest  danger  of  our  day;  and  I  think 
that  Mr.  St.  John  of  yours  is  nothing  more  than  a  decoy 
duck  to  lead  you  all  to  Rome.  I  went  up  there  once  and 
saw  'em  genuflecting,  and  turning  to  the  east,  and  burning 
candles,  and  that 's  all  I  want  to  know  about  them." 

"But  the  east  is  a  perfectly  harmless  point  of  the  com 
pass,"  said  Jim,  with  suavity;  "and  though  I  don't  want 
candles  in  the  daytime  myself,  yet  I  don't  see  what  harm 
it  does  anybody  to  burn  them." 

"Why,  that's  just  what  the  Catholics  do,"  said  Mrs. 
Wouvermans. 


AUNT  MARIA   CLEARS   HER  CONSCIENCE  119 

"Oh,  that 's  it,  is  it? "  said  Jim,  with  a  submissive  air. 
"Mustn't  we  do  anything  that  Catholics  do? " 

"No,  indeed,"  said  Aunt  Maria,  falling  into  the  open 
trap  with  affecting  naivete. 

"Then  we  mustn't  pray  at  all,"  said  Jim. 

"Oh,  pshaw!  of  course  I  didn't  mean  that.  You  know 
what  I  mean." 

"Certainly,  ma'am.  I  think  I  understand,"  said  Jim, 
while  Alice,  who  had  been  looking  reprovingly  at  him,  led 
off  the  subject  into  another  strain. 

But  Mrs.  Wouvermans  was  more  gracious  to  Jim  that 
evening  than  usual,  and  when  she  rose  to  go  home  that 
young  gentleman  offered  his  attendance,  and  was  accepted 
with  complacency. 

Mrs.  Wouvermans,  in  a  general  way,  believed  in  what 
is  called  Providence.  That  is  to  say,  when  any  little 
matter  fell  out  in  a  manner  exactly  apposite  to  any  of  her 
schemes,  she  called  it  providential.  On  the  present  occa 
sion,  when  she  found  herself  walking  in  the  streets  of  New 
York  alone,  in  the  evening,  with  a  young  man  who  treated 
her  with  flattering  deference,  it  could  not  but  strike  her  as 
a  providential  opportunity  not  to  be  neglected  of  fulfilling 
her  long-cherished  intentions  and  giving  a  sort  of  whole 
some  check  and  caution  to  the  youth.  So  she  began  with 
infinite  adroitness  to  prepare  the  way.  Jim,  the  while, 
who  saw  perfectly  what  she  was  aiming  at,  assisting  her  in 
the  most  obliging  manner. 

After  passing  through  sundry  truisms  about  the  necessity 
of  caution  and  regarding  appearances,  and  thinking  what 
people  will  say  to  this  and  that,  she  proceeded  to  inform 
him  that  the  report  was  in  circulation  that  he  was  engaged 
to  Alice. 

"The  report  does  me  entirely  too  much  honor,"  said 
Jim.  "But  of  course  if  Miss  Alice  isn't  disposed  to  deny 
it,  I  am  not." 


120  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

"Of  course  Miss  Alice's  friends  will  deny  it,"  said  Aunt 
Maria  decisively.  "I  merely  mentioned  it  to  you  that 
you  may  see  the  need  of  caution.  You  know,  of  course, 
Mr.  Fellows,  that  such  reports  stand  in  the  way  of  others 
who  might  be  disposed  —  well,  you  understand. " 

"Oh,  perfectly,  exactly,  quite  so,"  said  Jim,  who  could 
be  profuse  of  his  phrases  on  occasion,  "and  I  'm  extremely 
obliged  to  you  for  this  suggestion;  undoubtedly  your  great 
experience  and  knowledge  of  the  ways  of  society  will  show 
you  the  exact  way  to  deal  with  such  things." 

"You  see,"  pursued  Mrs.  Wouvermans  in  a  confidential 
tone,  "there  is  at  present  a  person  every  way  admirable 
and  desirable,  who  is  thinking  very  seriously  of  Alice; 
it's  quite  confidential,  you  know;  but  you  must  be  aware 
—  of  the  danger. " 

"I  perceive  —  a  blight  of  the  poor  fellow's  budding 
hopes  and  early  affections,"  said  Jim  fluently;  "well, 
though  of  course  the  very  suggestion  of  such  a  report  in 
regard  to  me  is  flattery  far  beyond  my  deserts,  so  that  I 
can't  be  annoyed  by  it,  still  I  should  be  profoundly  sorry 
to  have  it  occasion  any  trouble  to  Miss  Alice." 

"I  felt  sure  that  you  wouldn't  be  offended  with  me  for 
speaking  so  very  plainly.  I  hope  you  '11  keep  it  entirely 
private." 

"Oh,  certainly,"  said  Jim,  with  the  most  cheerful  good 
will.  "When  ladies  with  your  tact  and  skill  in  human 
nature  talk  to  us  young  fellows  you  never  give  offense. 
We  take  your  frankness  as  a  favor." 

Mrs.  Wouvermans  smiled  with  honest  pride.  Had  she 
not  been  warned  against  talking  to  this  youth  as  something 
that  was  going  to  be  of  most  explosive  tendency  1  How 
little  could  Nelly,  or  Eva,  or  any  of  them,  appreciate  her 
masterly  skill!  She  really  felt  in  her  heart  disposed  to 
regret  that  so  docile  a  pupil,  one  so  appreciative  of  her 
superior  abilities,  was  not  a  desirable  matrimonial  parti. 


AUNT   MARIA  CLEARS   HER   CONSCIENCE  121 

Had  Jim  been  a  youth  of  fortune  she  felt  that  she  could 
have  held  up  both  hands  for  him. 

"He  really  is  agreeable,"  was  her  thought,  as  she  shut 
the  door  upon  him. 


CHAPTER  XII 

WHY  CAN'T  THEY  LET  us  ALONE 

HARRY  went  out  to  his  office,  and  Eva  commenced  the 
morning  labors  of  a  young  housekeeper. 

What  are  they?  Something  in  their  way  as  airy  and 
pleasant  as  the  light  touches  and  arrangements  which  Eve 
gave  to  her  bower  in  Paradise  —  gathering  up  stray  rose 
leaves,  tying  up  a  lily  that  the  rain  has  bent,  looping  a 
honeysuckle  in  a  more  graceful  festoon,  and  meditating  the 
while  whether  she  shall  have  oranges  and  figs  and  grapes, 
or  guavas  and  pineapples,  for  her  first  course  at  dinner. 
Such,  according  to  Father  Milton,  were  the  ornamental 
duties  of  the  first  wife,  while  her  husband  went  out  to  his 
office  in  some  distant  part  of  Eden. 

But  Eden  still  exists  whenever  two  young  lovers  set  up 
housekeeping,  even  in  prosaic  New  York;  only  our  modern 
Eves  wear  jaunty  little  morning  caps  and  fascinating  wrap 
pers  and  slippers,  with  coquettish  butterfly  bows.  Eva's 
morning  duties  consisted  in  asking  Mary  what  they  had 
better  have  for  dinner,  giving  here  and  there  a  peep  into 
the  pantry,  rearranging  the  flower  vases,  and  flecking  the 
dust  from  her  pictures  and  statuettes  with  a  gay  and  glan 
cing  brush  of  peacock's  feathers.  Sometimes  the  morning 
arrangements  included  quite  a  change;  as,  this  particular 
day,  when,  on  mature  consideration,  a  spray  of  ivy  that 
was  stretching  towards  the  window  had  been  drawn  back 
and  forced  to  wreathe  itself  around  a  picture,  and  a  spray 
of  nasturtium,  gemmed  with  half-opened  golden  buds,  had 
been  trained  in  its  place  in  the  window.  One  may  think 


WHY  CAN'T  THEY  LET  us  ALONE  123 

this  a  very  simple  matter,  but  whoever  knows  all  the 
resistance  which  the  forces  of  matter  and  the  laws  of  gravi 
tation  make  to  the  simplest  improvement  in  one's  parlor, 
will  know  better. 

It  required  a  scaffolding  made  of  a  chair  and  an  ottoman 
to  reach  the  top  of  the  pictures,  and  a  tack-hammer  and 
little  tacks.  Then  the  precise  air  of  arrangement  and 
exact  position  had  to  be  studied  from  below  after  the  tacks 
were  driven,  and  that  necessitated  two  or  three  descents 
from  the  perch  to  review,  and  the  tumbling  of  the  ottoman 
to  the  floor,  and  the  calling  of  Mary  in  to  help,  and  to 
hold  the  ottoman  firm  while  the  persevering  little  artist 
finished  her  work.  It  is  by  ups  and  downs  like  these,  by 
daily  labor  of  modern  Eves,  each  in  their  little  paradises, 
O  ye  Adams!  that  your  houses  have  that  "just  right"  look 
that  makes  you  think  of  them  all  day,  and  long  to  come 
back  to  them  at  night. 

"Somehow  or  other,"  you  say,  "I  don't  know  how  it 
is,  my  wife's  things  have  a  certain  air;  her  vines  grow  just 
as  they  ought  to,  her  flowers  blossom  in  just  the  right 
places,  and  her  parlors  always  look  pleasant."  You  don't 
know  how  many  periods  of  grave  consideration,  how  many 
climbings  on  chairs  and  ottomans,  how  many  doings  and 
undoings  and  shiftings  and  changes  produce  the  appearance 
that  charms  you.  Most  people  think  that  flower  vases  are 
very  simple  affairs;  but  the  keeping  of  parlors  dressed 
with  flowers  is  daily  work  for  an  hour  or  two  for  any 
woman.  Nor  is  it  work  in  vain.  No  altar  is  holier  than 
the  home  altar,  and  the  flowers  that  adorn  it  are  sacred. 

Eva  was  sitting,  a  little  tired  with  her  strenuous  exer 
tions,  contemplating  her  finished  arrangement  with  satisfac 
tion,  when  the  door-bell  rang,  and  Alice  came  in. 

"Why,  Allie,  dear,  how  nice  of  you  to  be  down  here  so 
early !  I  was  just  wanting  somebody  to  show  my  changes 
to.  Look  there.  See  how  I  've  looped  that  ivy  round 


124  WE  AND   OUK  NEIGHBORS 

mother's  picture;  isn't  it  sweet?"  and  Eva  caressingly 
arranged  a  leaf  or  two  to  suit  her. 

"  Charming !  "  said  Alice,  but  with  rather  an  abstracted, 
preoccupied  tone. 

"And  look  at  this  nasturtium;  it's  full  of  buds.  See, 
the  yellow  is  beginning  to  show.  I  've  fastened  it  in  a 
wreath  around  the  window,  so  that  the  sun  will  shine 
through  the  blossoms." 

"It 's  beautiful,"  said  Alice,  still  absently  and  nervously 
playing  with  her  bonnet  strings. 

"Why,  darling,  what 's  the  matter? "  said  Eva,  suddenly 
noticing  signs  of  some  unusual  feeling.  "  What  ails  you  ?  " 

"Well,"  said  Alice,  hastily  untying  her  bonnet  and 
throwing  it  down  on  the  sofa,  "I  've  come  up  to  talk  with 
you.  I  hope,"  she  said,  flushing  crimson  with  vexation, 
"that  Aunt  Maria  is  satisfied  now;  she  is  the  most  exas 
perating  woman  I  ever  knew  or  heard  of !  " 

"Dear  me,  Allie,  what  has  she  done  now?" 

"Well,  what  do  you  think?  Last  Sunday  she  came  to 
our  house  to  tea,  drawn  up  in  martial  array  and  ready  to 
attack  us  all  for  not  going  to  the  old  church  —  that  stupid, 
dead  old  church,  where  people  do  nothing  but  doze  and 
wake  up  to  criticise  each  other's  bonnets  —  but  you  really 
would  think  to  hear  Aunt  Maria  talk  that  there  was  a 
second  Babylonian  captivity  or  something  of  that  sort 
coming  on,  and  we  were  getting  it  up.  You  see,  Dr. 
dishing  has  got  excited  because  some  of  the  girls  are  going 
up  to  the  mission  church,  and  it 's  led  him  to  an  unwonted 
exertion;  and  Aunt  Maria  quite  waked  up  and  considers 
herself  an  apostle  and  prophet.  I  wish  you  could  have 
heard  her  talk.  It 's  enough  to  make  any  cause  ridiculous 
to  have  one  defend  it  as  she  did.  You  ought  to  have 
heard  that  witch  of  a  Jim  Fellows  arguing  with  her  and 
respectfully  leading  her  into  all  sorts  of  contradictions  and 
absurdities  till  I  stopped  him.  I  really  would  n't  let  him 
lead  her  to  make  such  a  fool  of  herself." 


WHY  CAN'T  THEY  LET  us  ALONE  125 

"Oh,  well,  if  that's  all,  Allie,  I  don't  think  you  need 
to  trouble  your  head,"  said  Eva.  "Aunt  Maria,  of  course, 
will  hold  on  to  her  old  notions,  and  her  style  of  argument 
never  was  very  consecutive." 

"But  that  isn't  all.  Oh,  you  may  be  sure  I  didn't  care 
for  what  she  said  about  the  Church.  I  can  have  my  opin 
ion  and  she  hers,  on  that  point." 

"  Well,  then,  what  is  the  matter  ?  " 

"  Well,  if  you  '11  believe  me,  she  has  actually  undertaken 
to  tutor  Jim  Fellows  in  relation  to  his  intimacy  with  me." 

"Oh,  Allie,"  groaned  Eva,  "has  she  done  that?  I 
begged  and  implored  her  to  let  that  matter  alone." 

"Then  she  's  been  talking  with  you,  too!  and  I  wonder 
how  many  more,"  said  Alice  in  tones  of  disgust. 

"  Yes,  she  did  talk  with  me  in  her  usual  busy,  impera 
tive  way,  and  told  me  all  that  Mrs.  Thus-and-so  and  Mr. 
This- and- that  said  —  but  people  are  always  saying  things, 
and  if  they  don't  say  one  thing  they  will  another.  I  tried 
to  persuade  her  to  let  it  alone,  but  she  seemed  to  think  you 
must  be  talked  with;  so  I  finally  told  her  that  if  she'd 
leave  it  to  me  I  would  say  all  that  was  necessary.  I  did 
mean  to  say  something,  but  I  did  n't  want  to  trouble  you. 
I  thought  there  was  no  hurry." 

"Well,  you  see,"  said  Alice,  "Jim  went  home  with  her 
that  night,  and  I  suppose  she  thought  the  opportunity  too 
good  to  be  neglected.  I  don't  know  just  what  she  said  to 
him,  but  I  know  it  was  about  me." 

"How  do  you  know  1     Did  Jim  tell  you?  " 

"No,  indeed;  catch  him  telling  me!  He  knows  too 
much  for  that.  Aunt  Maria  let  it  out  herself." 

"Let  it  out  herself?" 

"Yes;  she  blundered  into  it  before  she  knew  what  she 
was  saying,  and  betrayed  herself;  and  then,  when  I  ques 
tioned  her,  she  had  to  tell  me." 

"  How  came  she  to  commit  herself  so  ? " 


126  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

"It  was  just  this.  You  know  the  little  party  Aunt 
Maria  had  Tuesday  evening,  — the  one  you  couldn't  come 
to  on  account  of  that  Stephens  engagement  ? " 

"Yes;  what  of  it?" 

"  I  really  -suspect  that  was  all  got  up  in  the  interest  of 
one  of  Aunt  Maria's  schemes  to  bring  me  and  that  John 
Davenport  together.  At  any  rate,  there  he  was,  and  his 
sister;  and  really,  Eva,  his  treatment  of  me  was  so  marked 
that  it  was  quite  disagreeable.  Why,  the  man  seemed 
really  infatuated.  His  manner  was  so  that  everybody 
remarked  it;  and  the  colder  and  more  distant  I  grew,  the 
more  it  increased.  Aunt  Maria  was  delighted.  She 
plumed  herself  and  rushed  round  in  the  most  satisfied  way, 
while  I  was  only  provoked.  I  saw  he  was  going  to  ask 
to  wait  on  me  home,  and  so  I  fell  back  on  a  standing 
engagement  that  I  have  with  Jim,  to  go  with  me  whenever 
anybody  asks  that  I  don't  want  to  go  with.  Jim  and  I 
have  always  had  that  understanding  in  dancing  and  at  par 
ties,  so  that  we  can  keep  clear  of  disagreeable  partners  and 
people.  I  was  determined  I  wouldn't  walk  home  with 
that  man,  and  I  told  Jim  privately  that  he  was  to  be  on 
duty,  and  he  took  the  hint  in  a  minute.  So  when  Mr. 
Davenport  wound  up  his  attentions  by  asking  if  he  should 
have  the  pleasure  of  seeing  me  home,  I  told  him  with 
great  satisfaction  that  I  was  engaged,  and  off  I  walked 
with  Jim.  The  girls  were  in  a  perfect  state  of  giggle,  to 
see  Aunt  Maria's  indignation." 

"And  so  really  you  don't  like  this  Mr.  Davenport? " 

"Like  him!  Indeed  I  don't.  In  the  first  place,  it 
isn't  a  year  since  his  wife  died;  and  everybody  was  pity 
ing  him.  He  could  hardly  be  kept  alive,  and  fainted 
away,  and  had  to  have  hot  bottles  at  his  feet,  and  all  that. 
All  the  old  ladies  were  rolling  up  their  eyes;  such  a  sigh 
ing  and  sympathizing  for  John  Davenport;  and  now,  here 
he  is!" 


WHY  CAN'T  THEY  LET  us  ALONE  127 

"Poor  man! "  said  Eva,  "I  suppose  he  is  lonesome. " 
"Yes.      I  suppose,  as  Irving  says,  the  greatest  compli 
ment  he  can  pay  to  his  former  wife  is  to  display  an  eager 
ness  for  another;  but  his  attentions  are  simply  disagreeable 
to  me." 

"After  all,  the  worst  crime  you  allege  seems  to  be  that 
he  is  too  sensitive  to  your  attractions." 

"Yes;  and  shows  it  in  a  very  silly  way  —  making  me 
an  object  of  remark!  He  may  be  very  nice  and  very 
worthy,  and  all  that;  but  in  any  such  relation  as  that  he 
is  so  unpleasant  to  me!  I  can't  bear  him,  and  I'm  not 
going  to  be  talked  or  manoeuvred  into  anything  that  might 
commit  me  to  even  consider  him.  I  remember  the  trouble 
you  had  for  being  persuaded  to  let  Wat  Sydney  dangle 
after  you.  I  will  not  have  anything  of  the  kind.  I  am 
a  decided  young  woman,  and  know  my  own  mind." 

"  Well,  how  did  you  learn  about  Aunt  Maria  and  Jim  1 " 
"How?  Oh,  well,  the  next  day  conies  Aunt  Maria  to 
talk  with  mamma,  who  wasn't  there,  by  the  bye;  papa 
hates  so  to  go  out  that  she  has  got  to  staying  at  home  with 
him.  But  the  next  day  came  an  exaggerated  picture  of 
my  triumphs  to  mamma  and  a  lecture  to  me  on  my  bad 
behavior.  The  worst  of  all,  she  said,  was  the  very  marked 
thing  of  my  going  home  with  Jim;  and  in  her  heat  she 
let  out  that  she  had  spoken  to  him  and  warned  him  of 
what  folks  would  think  and  say  of  such  appearances.  I 
was  angry  then,  and  I  expressed  my  mind  freely  to  Aunt 
Maria,  and  we  had  a  downright  quarrel.  I  said  things  I 
ought  not  to  say,  just  as  one  always  does,  and  —  now  isn't 
it  disagreeable?  Isn't  it  dreadful?"  said  Alice,  with  the 
earnestness  of  a  young  girl  whose  whole  nature  goes  into 
her  first  trouble.  "Nothing  could  be  nicer  and  more  just 
what  a  thing  ought  to  be  than  my  friendship  with  Jim. 
I  have  influence  over  him  and  I  can  do  him  good,  and  I 
enjoy  his  society,  and  the  kind  of  easy,  frank  understand- 


128  WE  AND  OUR  NEIGHBORS 

ing  that  there  is  between  us,  that  we  can  say  anything  to 
each  other;  and  what  business  is  it  of  anybody's?  It's 
our  own  affair,  and  no  one's  else." 

"Certainly  it  is,"  said  Eva  sympathizingly. 

"And  Aunt  Maria  said  that  folks  were  saying  that  if 
we  were  n't  engaged  we  ought  to  be.  What  a  hateful  thing 
to  say !  As  if  there  were  any  impropriety  in  a  friendship 
between  a  gentleman  and  a  lady.  Why  may  not  a  gentle 
man  and  a  lady  have  a  special  friendship  as  well  as  one  lady 
with  another,  or  one  gentleman  with  another  ?  I  don't  see." 

"Neither  do  I,"  said  Eva  responsively. 

"•Now,"  said  Alice,  "the  suggestion  of  marriage  and  all 
that  is  disagreeable  to  me.  I  'm  thinking  of  nothing  of 
the  kind.  I  like  Jim.  Well,  I  don't  mind  saying  to 
you,  Eva,  who  can  understand  me,  that  I  love  him,  in  a 
sort  of  way.  I  am  interested  for  him.  I  know  his  good 
points  and  I  know  his  faults,  and  I  'm  at  liberty  to  speak 
to  him  with  perfect  freedom,  and  I  think  there  is  nothing 
so  good  for  a  young  man  as  such  a  friendship.  We  girls, 
you  know,  dear,  can  do  a  great  deal  for  young  men  if  we 
try.  We  are  not  tempted  as  they  are;  we  have  not  their 
hard  places  and  trials  to  walk  through,  and  we  can  make 
allowances,  and  they  will  receive  things  from  us  that  they 
wouldn't  from  any  one  else,  and  they  show  us  just  the 
best  side  of  their  nature,  which  is  the  truest  side  of  every 
body." 

"  Certainly,  Alice.  Harry  was  saying  only  a  little  while 
ago  that  your  influence  would  make  a  man  of  Jim;  and  I 
certainly  think  he  has  wonderfully  improved  of  late  —  he 
seems  more  serious." 

"We've  learned  to  know  him  better;  that's  all,"  said 
Alice.  "Young  men  rattle  and  talk  idly  to  girls  when 
they  don't  feel  acquainted  and  haven't  real  confidence  in 
their  friendship,  just  as  a  sort -of  blind.  They  don't  dare 
to  express  their  real,  deepest  feelings." 


WHY  CAN'T  THEY  LET  us  ALONE  129 

"Well,  I  didn't  know  that  Jim  had  any,"  said  Eva 
incautiously. 

"Why,  Eva,  how  unjust  you  are  to  Jim!"  said  Alice, 
with  flushing  cheeks.  "I  shouldn't  have  thought  it  of 
you ;  so  many  kind  things  as  Jim  had  done  for  us  all ! " 

"My  darling,  I  beg  Jim's  pardon  with  all  my  heart," 
said  Eva,  laughing  to  herself  at  this  earnest  championship. 
"I  didn't  mean  quite  what  I  said,  but  you  know,  Alice, 
his  sort  of  wild,  rattling  way  of  talking  over  all  subjects, 
so  that  you  can't  tell  which  is  jest  and  which  is  earnest." 

"Oh!  I  can  always  tell,"  said  Alice.  "I  always  can 
make  him  come  down  to  the  earnest  part  of  him,  and  Jim 
has,  after  all,  really  good,  sensible  ideas  of  life  and  aspira 
tions  after  what  is  right  and  true.  He  has  the  temptation 
of  having  been  a  sort  of  spoiled  child.  People  do  so  like 
a  laugh  that  they  set  him  on  and  encourage  him  in  saying 
all  sorts  of  things  he  ought  not.  People  have  very  little 
principle  about  that.  So  that  any  one  amuses  them,  they 
never  consider  whether  he  does  right  to  talk  as  he  does; 
they  '11  set  Jim  up  to  talk  because  it  amuses  them,  and 
then  go  away  and  say  what  a  rattle  he  is,  and  that  he  has 
no  real  principle  or  feeling.  They  just  make  a  buffoon  of 
him,  and  they  know  nothing  about  the  best  part  of  him." 

"Well,  Alice,  I  dare  say  you  do  see  more  of  Jim's  real 
nature  than  any  of  us." 

"Oh!  indeed  I  do;  and  I  know  how  to  appeal  to  it. 
Even  when  I  can't  help  laughing  at  things  he  ought  not 
to  say  —  and  sometimes  they  are  so  droll  I  can't  help  it  — 
afterwards  I  have  my  say  and  tell  him  really  and  soberly 
just  what  I  think,  and  you  've  no  idea  how  beautifully  he 
takes  it.  Oh,  Jim  really  is  good  at  heart,  there  's  no  doubt 
about  that." 

"Do  you  think  Aunt  Maria's  meddling  will  make  trou 
ble  between  you  1 " 

"No!  only  that  it's  an  awkward,  disagreeable  thing  to 


130  WE  AND  OUR  NEIGHBORS 

speak  of;  but  I  shall  speak  to  Jim  about  it  and  let  him 
understand,  if  he  does  n't  now,  just  what  Aunt  Maria  is, 
and  that  he  mustn't  mind  anything  she  says.  I  feel 
rather  better,  now  I  've  relieved  my  mind  to  you,  and 
perhaps  shall  have  more  charity  for  Aunt  Maria." 

"After  all,  poor  soul,"  said  Eva,  "it's  her  love  for  us 
that  leads  her  to  vex  us  in  all  these  ways.  She  can't  help 
planning  and  fussing  and  lying  awake  nights  for  us.  She 
failed  in  getting  a  splendid  marriage  for  me,  and  now  she  's 
like  Bruce 's  spider,  up  and  at  her  web  again  weaving  a 
destiny  for  you.  It's  in  her  to  be  active;  she  has  no 
children;  her  house  don't  half  satisfy  her  as  a  field  of 
enterprise,  and  she,  of  course,  is  taking  care  of  mamma 
and  our  family.  If  mamma  had  not  been  just  the  gentle, 
lovely,  yielding  woman  she  is,  Aunt  Maria  never  would 
have  got  such  headway  in  the  family  and  taken  such  airs 
about  us." 

"She  perfectly  tyrannizes  over  mamma,"  said  Alice. 
"She  's  always  coming  up  to  lecture  her  for  not  doing  this, 
that,  or  the  other  thing  Now  all  this  talk  about  our  going 
to  Mr.  St.  John's  church;  —  poor,  dear,  little  mamma  is 
as  willing  to  let  us  do  as  we  please  as  the  flowers  are  to 
blossom,  and  then  Aunt  Maria  talks  as  if  she  were  abetting 
a  conspiracy  against  the  Church.  I  know  that  we  are  all 
living  more  serious,  earnest  lives  for  Mr.  St.  John's  influ 
ence.  It  may  be  that  he  is  going  too  far  in  certain  direc 
tions;  it  may  be  that  in  the  long  run  such  things  tend  to 
dangerous  extremes,  but  I  don't  see  any  real  harm  in  them 
so  far,  and  I  find  real  good." 

"Well,  you  know,  dear,  that  Harry  isn't  of  our  Church 
—  he  is  a  Congregationalist  —  but  his  theory  is  that  Chris 
tian  people  should  join  with  any  other  Christian  people 
who  they  see  are  really  working  in  earnest  to  do  good. 
This  church  is  near  by  us,  where  we  can  conveniently  go, 
and  as  I  have  my  house  to  attend  to  and  am  not  strong 


WHY  CAN'T  THEY  LET  us  ALONE  131 

you  know,  that  is  quite  a  consideration.  I  know  Harry 
don't  agree  with  Mr.  St.  John  at  all  about  his  ideas  of  the 
Church,  and  he  thinks  he  carries  some  of  his  ceremonies 
too  far;  but,  on  the  whole,  he  really  is  doing  a  great  deal 
of  practical  good,  and  Harry  is  willing  to  help  him.  I 
think  it 's  just  lovely  in  Harry  to  do  so.  It  is  real  liber 
ality.7' 

"I  wish,"  said  Alice,  "that  Mr.  St.  John  were  a  little 
freer  in  his  way.  There  is  a  sort  of  solemnity  about  him 
that  is  depressing,  and  it  seems  to  set  Jim  off  in  a  spirit 
of  contradiction.  He  says  Mr.  St.  John  stirs  up  the  evil 
within  him,  and  makes  him  long  to  break  over  bounds  and 
say  something  wicked,  just  to  shock  him." 

"I've  had  that  desire  to  shock  very  proper  people  in 
the  days  of  my  youth,"  said  Eva.  "I  don't  know  what 
it  comes  from." 

"I  think,"  said  Alice,  "that,  to  be  sure,  this  is  an  irrev 
erent  age,  and  New  York  is  an  irreverent  place;  but  yet 
I  think  people  may  carry  the  outside  air  of  reverence  too 
far.  Don't  you?  They  impose  a  sort  of  constraint  on 
everybody  around  them  that  keeps  them  from  knowing  the 
people  they  associate  with.  Mr.  St.  John,  for  instance, 
knows  nothing  about  Jim ;  he  never  acts  himself  out  before 
him." 

"  Oh,  dear  me !  "  said  Eva,  "  fancy  what  he  would  think 
if  he  should  see  Jim  in  one  of  his  frolics." 

"And  yet,  Jim,  in  his  queer  way,  appreciates  Mr.  St. 
John,"  said  Alice.  "He  says  he  's  *  a  brick  '  after  all,  by 
which  he  means  that  he  does  good,  honest  work;  and  Jim 
has  been  enough  around  among  the  poor  of  New  York,  in 
his  quality  of  newspaper  writer,  to  know  when  a  man  does 
good  among  them.  If  Mr.  St.  John  only  could  learn  to 
be  indulgent  to  other  people's  natures  he  might  do  a  great 
deal  for  Jim." 

"I  rather  think  Jim  will  be  your  peculiar  parish  for 


132  WE   AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

some  time  to  come,"  said  Eva,  with  a  smile,  "but  Harry 
and  I  are  projecting  schemes  to  draw  Mr.  St.  John  into 
more  general  society.  That  '&  one  of  the  things  we  are 
going  to  try  to  do  in  our  *  evenings. '  I  don't  believe  he 
has  ever  been  into  general  society  at  all;  he  ought  to  hear 
the  talk  of  his  day  —  he  talks  and  feels  and  thinks  more 
in  the  past  than  the  present;  he  's  all  the  while  trying  to 
restore  an  ideal  age  of  reverence  and  devotion,  but  he 
ought  to  know  the  real  age  he  lives  in.  If  we  could  get 
him  to  coming  to  our  house  every  week,  and  meeting  real 
live  men,  women,  and  girls  of  to-day  and  entering  a  little 
into  their  life,  it  would  do  him  good." 

"I  suppose  he  'd  be  afraid  of  any  indulgence!  " 

"We  must  not  put  it  to  him  as  an  indulgence,  but  a 
good  hard  duty,"  said  Eva;  "we  should  never  catch  him 
with  an  indulgence." 

"When  are  you  going  to  begin?  " 

"I've  been  talking  with  Mary  about  it,  and  I  rather 
think  I  shall  take  next  Thursday  for  the  first.  I  shall 
depend  on  you  and  the  girls  to  help  me  keep  the  thing 
balanced,  and  going  on  just  right.  Jim  must  be  moder 
ated,  and  kept  from  coming  out  too  strong,  and  everybody 
must  be  made  to  have  a  good  time,  so  that  they  '11  want  to 
come  again.  You  see  we  want  to  get  them  to  coming  every 
week,  so  that  they  will  all  know  one  another  by  and  by, 
and  get  a  sort  of  home  feeling  about  our  rooms;  such  a 
thing  is  possible,  I  think." 

The  conversation  now  meandered  off  into  domestic  de 
tails,  not  further  traceable  in  this  chapter. 


CHAPTEE   XIII 
OUR  "EVENING"  PROJECTED 

"WELL,  Harry,"  said  Eva,  when  they  were  seated  at 
dinner,  "Alice  was  up  at  lunch  with  me  this  morning,  in 
such  a  state!  It  seems,  after  all,  Aunt  Maria  could  not 
contain  her  zeal  for  management,  and  has  been  having  an 
admonitory  talk  with  Jim  Fellows  about  his  intimacy  with 
Alice." 

"Now,  I  declare,  that  goes  beyond  me,"  said  Harry,  lay 
ing  down  his  knife  and  fork.  "That  woman's  imperti 
nence  is  really  stupendous.  It  amounts  to  the  sublime." 

"Doesn't  it?  Alice  was  in  such  a  state  about  it;  but 
we  talked  the  matter  down  into  calmness.  Still,  Harry, 
I  'm  pretty  certain  that  Alice  is  more  seriously  interested 
in  Jim  than  she  knows  of.  Of  course  she  thinks  it 's  all 
friendship,  but  she  is  so  sensitive  about  him,  and  if  you 
make  even  the  shadow  of  a  criticism  she  flames  up  and 
defends  him.  You  ought  to  see." 

"Grave  symptoms,"  said  Harry. 

"But  as  she  says  she  is  not  thinking  nor  wanting  to 
think  of  marriage  "  — 

"Any  more  than  a  certain  other  young  lady  was,  with 
whom  I  cultivated  a  friendship  some  time  ago, "  said  Harry, 
laughing. 

"Just  so,"  said  Eva;  "I  plume  myself  on  my  forbear 
ance  in  listening  gravely  to  Alice  and  not  putting  in  any 
remarks;  but  I  remembered  old  times  and  had  my  suspi 
cions.  We  thought  it  was  friendship,  did  n't  we,  Harry  ? 
And  I  used  to  be  downright  angry  if  anybody  suggested 


134  WE  AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

anything  else.  Now,  I  think  Allie's  friendship  for  Jim  is 
getting  to  be  of  the  same  kind.  Oh,  she  knows  him  so 
well !  and  she  understands  him  so  perfectly !  and  she  has 
so  much  influence  over  him !  and  they  have  such  perfect 
comprehension  of  each  other!  and  as  to  his  faults,  oh,  she 
understands  all  about  them !  But,  mind  you,  nobody  must 
criticise  him  but  herself  —  that's  quite  evident.  I  did 
make  a  blundering  remark  or  so;  but  I  found  it  wasn't  at 
all  the  thing,  and  I  had  to  beat  a  rapid  retreat,  I  assure 
you." 

"Well,  poor  girl!     I  hope  you  managed  to  console  her." 

"Oh,  I  was  sympathetic  and  indignant,  and  after  she 
had  poured  out  her  griefs  she  felt  better;  and  then  I  put 
in  a  soothing  word  for  Aunt  Maria,  poor  woman,  who  is 
only  monomaniac  on  managing  our  affairs." 

"Yes,"  said  Harry,  "forgiveness  of  enemies  used  to  be 
the  ultima  Thule  of  virtue ;  but  I  rather  think  it  will  have 
to  be  forgiveness  of  friends.  I  call  the  man  a  perfect 
Christian  that  can  always  forgive  his  friends." 

"The  fact  is,  Aunt  Maria  ought  to  have  had  a  great 
family  of  her  own  —  twelve  or  thirteen,  to  say  the  least. 
If  Providence  had  vouchsafed  her  eight  or  nine  ramping, 
roaring  boys,  and  a  sprinkling  of  girls,  she  would  have  been 
a  splendid  woman  and  we  should  have  had  better  times." 

"She  puts  me  in  mind  of  the  story  of  the  persistent 
broomstick  that  would  fetch  water,"  said  Harry;  "we  are 
likely  to  be  drowned  out  by  her." 

"  Well,  we  can  accept  her  for  a  whetstone  to  sharpen  up 
our  Christian  graces  on,"  said  Eva.  "So,  let  her  go.  I 
was  talking  over  our  projected  evening  with  Alice,  and  we 
spent  some  time  discussing  that." 

"When  are  you  going  to  begin?  "  said  Harry.  "  '  Well 
begun  is  half  done, '  you  know. " 

Said  Eva,  "I've  been  thinking  over  what  day  is  best, 
and  talking  about  it  with  Mary.  Now,  we  can't  have  it 


OUR  "EVENING"  PROJECTED  135 

Monday,  there  's  the  washing,  you  know;  and  Tuesday  and 
Wednesday  come  baking  and  ironing." 

"Well,  then,  what  happens  Thursday?" 

"Well,  then,  it's  precisely  Thursday  that  Mary  and  I 
agreed  on.  We  both  made  up  our  minds  that  it  was  the 
right  day.  One  wouldn't  want  it  on  Friday,  you  know, 
and  Saturday  is  too  late;  besides,  Mr.  St.  John  never  goes 
out  Saturday  evenings." 

"But  what 's  the  objection  to  Friday?  " 

"  Oh,  the  unlucky  day.  Mary  would  n't  hear  of  begin 
ning  anything  on  Friday,  you  know.  Then,  besides,  Mr. 
St.  John,  I  suspect,  fasts  every  Friday.  He  never  told 
me  so,  of  course,  but  they  say  he  does;  at  all  events,  I  'm 
sure  he  wouldn't  come  of  a  Friday  evening,  and  I  want  to 
be  sure  and  have  him,  of  all  people.  Now,  you  see,  I  've 
planned  it  all  beautifully.  I  'm  going  to  have  a  nice, 
pretty  little  tea-table  in  one  corner,  with  a  vase  of  flowers 
on  it,  and  I  shall  sit  and  make  tea.  That  breaks  the  stiff 
ness,  you  know.  People  talk  first  about  the  tea  and  the 
china,  and  whether  they  take  cream  and  sugar,  and  so  on, 
and  the  gentlemen  help  the  ladies.  Then  Mary  will  make 
those  delicate  little  biscuits  of  hers  and  her  charming 
sponge-cake.  It  's  going  to  be  perfectly  quiet,  you  see  — 
from  half  past  seven  till  eleven  —  early  hours  and  simple 
fare,  '  feast  of  reason  and  flow  of  soul. '  ' 

"Quite  pastoral  and  Arcadian,"  said  Harry.  "WThen 
we  get  it  going  it  will  be  the  ideal  of  social  life.  No  fuss, 
no  noise;  all  the  quiet  of  home  life  with  all  the  variety  of 
company;  people  seeing  each  other  till  they  get  really  inti 
mate  and  have  a  genuine  interest  in  meeting  each  other; 
not  a  mere  outside,  wild  beast  show,  as  it  is  when  people 
go  to  parties  to  gaze  at  other  people  and  see  how  they  look 
in  war-paint." 

"I  feel  a  little  nervous  at  first,"  said  Eva;  "getting 
people  together  that  are  so  diametrically  opposed  to  each 


136  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

other  as  Dr.  Campbell  and  Mr.  St.  John,  for  instance. 
I  'm  afraid  Dr.  Campbell  will  come  out  with  some  of  his 
terribly  free  speaking,  and  then  Mr.  St.  John  will  be  so 
shocked  and  distressed." 

"  Then  Mr.  St.  John  must  get  over  being  shocked  and 
distressed.  Mr.  St.  John  needs  Dr.  Campbell,"  said 
Harry.  "He  is  precisely  the  man  he  ought  to  meet,  and 
Dr.  Campbell  needs  Mr.  St.  John.  The  two  men  are  in 
tended  to  help  each  other:  each  has  what  the  other  wants, 
and  they  ought  to  be  intimate." 

"But  you  see,  Dr.  Campbell  is  such  a  dreadful  unbe 
liever  ! " 

"  In  a  certain  way  he  is  no  more  an  unbeliever  than  Mr. 
St.  John.  Dr.  Campbell  is  utterly  ignorant  of  the  higher 
facts  of  moral  consciousness  —  of  prayer  and  communion 
with  God  —  and  therefore  he  doesn't  believe  in  them. 
St.  John  is  equally  ignorant  of  some  of  the  most  important 
facts  of  the  body  he  inhabits.  He  does  not  believe  in 
them  —  ignores  them. " 

"Oh,  but  now,  Harry,  I  didn't  think  that  of  you  — 
that  you  could  put  the  truths  of  the  body  on  a  level  with 
the  truths  of  the  soul." 

"Bless  you  darling,  since  the  Maker  has  been  pleased 
to  make  the  soul  so  dependent  on  the  body,  how  can  I 
help  it?  Why,  just  see  here;  come  to  this  very  problem 
of  saving  a  soul,  which  is  a  minister's  work.  I  insist 
there  are  cases  where  Dr.  Campbell  can  do  more  towards 
it  than  Mr.  St.  John.  He  was  quoting  to  me  only  yester 
day  a  passage  from  Dr.  Wigan,  where  he  says,  '  I  firmly 
believe  I  have  more  than  once  changed  the  moral  character 
of  a  boy  by  leeches  applied  to  the  inside  of  his  nose. '  " 

"Why,  Harry,  that  sounds  almost  shocking." 

"Yet  it's  a  fact  —  a  physiological  fact  —  that  some  of 
the  worst  vices  come  through  a  disordered  body,  and  can 
be  cured  only  by  curing  the  body.  So  long  as  we  are  in 


137 

this  mortal  state,  our  souls  have  got  to  he  saved  in  our 
bodies  and  by  the  laws  of  our  bodies;  and  a  doctor  who 
understands  them  will  do  more  than  a  minister  who  does  n't. 
Why,  just  look  at  poor  Bolton.  The  trouble  that  he  dreads, 
the  fear  that  blasts  his  life,  that  makes  him  afraid  to  marry, 
is  a  disease  of  the  body.  Fasting,  prayer,  sacraments, 
couldn't  keep  off  an  acute  attack  of  dipsomania;  but  a 
doctor  might." 

"Oh,  Harry,  do  you  think  so?  Well,  I  must  say  I  do 
think  Mr.  St.  John  is  as  ignorant  as  a  child  about  such 
matters,  if  I  may  judge  from  the  way  he  goes  on  about  his 
own  health.  He  ignores  his  body  entirely,  and  seems 
determined  to  work  as  if  he  were  a  spirit  and  could  live  on 
prayer  and  fasting." 

"Which,  as  he  isn't  a  spirit,  won't  do,"  said  Harry. 
"It  may  end  in  making  a  spirit  of  him  before  the  time." 

"But  don't  you  think  the  disinterestedness  he  shows  is 
perfectly  heroic  1 "  said  Eva. 

"Oh,  certainly!"  said  Harry.  "The  fact  is,  I  should 
despair  of  St.  John  if  he  hadn't  set  himself  at  mission 
work.  He  is  naturally  so  ideal,  and  so  fastidious,  and  so 
fond  of  rules,  and  limits,  and  order,  that  if  he  had  n't  this 
practical  common-sense  problem  of  working  among  the 
poor  on  his  hands,  I  should  think  he  wouldn't  be  good  for 
much.  But  drunken  men  and  sorrowful  wives,  ragged 
children,  sickness,  pain,  poverty,  teach  a  man  the  common 
sense  of  religion  faster  than  anything  else,  and  I  can  see 
St.  John  is  learning  sense  for  everybody  but  himself.  If 
he  only  don't  run  his  own  body  down,  he  '11  make  some 
thing  yet." 

"I  think,  Harry,"  said  Eva,  "he  is  a  little  doubtful  of 
whether  you  really  go  with  him  or  not.  I  don't  think  he 
knows  how  much  you  like  him." 

"Go  with  him!  of  course  I  do.  I  stand  up  for  St. 
John  and  defend  him.  So  long  as  a  man  is  giving  his 


138  WE   AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

whole  life  to  hard  work  among  the  poor  and  neglected  he 
may  burn  forty  candles,  if  he  wants  to,  for  all  I  care.  He 
may  turn  to  any  point  of  the  compass  he  likes,  east,  west, 
north,  or  south,  and  wear  all  the  colors  of  the  rainbow  if 
it  suits  him,  and  I  won't  complain.  In  fact,  I  like  proces 
sions,  and  chantings,  and  ceremonies,  if  you  don't  get  too 
many  of  them.  I  think,  generally  speaking,  there  's  too 
little  of  that  sort  of  thing  in  our  American  life.  In  the 
main,  St.  John  preaches  good  sermons;  that  is,  good, 
manly,  honest  talks  to  people  about  what  they  need  to 
know.  But  then  his  mind  is  tending  to  a  monomania  of 
veneration.  You  see  he  has  a  mystical,  poetic  element  in 
it  that  may  lead  him  back  into  the  old  idolatries  of  past 
ages,  and  lead  weak  minds  there  after  him;  that's  why  I 
want  to  get  him  acquainted  with  such  fellows  as  Campbell. 
He  needs  to  learn  the  common  sense  of  life.  I  think  he 
is  capable  of  it,  and  one  of  the  first  things  he  has  got  to 
learn  is  not  to  be  shocked  at  hearing  things  said  from  other 
people's  points  of  view.  If  these  two  men  could  only  like 
each  other,  so  as  to  listen  tolerantly  and  dispassionately  to 
what  each  has  to  say,  they  might  be  everything  to  each 
other." 

"Well,  how  to  get  a  mordant  to  unite  these  two  oppos 
ing  colors  1  "  said  Eva. 

"That 's  what  you  women  are  for  —  at  least  such  women 
as  you.  It 's  your  mission  to  interpret  differing  natures 

—  to  bind,  and  blend,  and  unite. " 

"But  how  shall  we  get  them  to  like  each  other?"  said 
Eva.  "Both  are  so  very  intense  and  so  opposite.  I  sup 
pose  Dr.  Campbell  would  consider  most  of  Mr.  St.  John's 
ideas  stuff  and  nonsense;  and  I  know,  as  well  as  I  know 
anything,  that  if  Mr.  St.  John  should  hear  Dr.  Campbell 
talking  as  he  talks  to  you,  he  would  shut  up  like  a  flower 

—  he  would  retire  into  himself  and  not  come  here  any 
more." 


OUR  "EVENING"  PROJECTED  139 

"Oh,  Eva,  that's  making  the  man  too  ridiculous  and 
unmanly.  Good  gracious!  Can't  a  man  who  thinks  he 
has  God's  truth  —  and  such  truth!  —  listen  to  opposing 
views  without  going  into  fits  1  It 's  like  a  soldier  who 
cannot  face  guns  and  wants  to  stay  inside  of  a  clean,  nice 
fort,  making  pretty  stacks  of  bayonets  and  piling  cannon- 
balls  in  lovely  little  triangles." 

"Well,  Harry,  I  know  Mr.  St.  John  isn't  like  that.  I 
don't  think  he  's  cowardly  or  unmanly,  but  he  is  very  rev 
erent,  and,  Harry,  you  are  very  free.  You  do  let  Dr. 
Campbell  go  on  so,  over  everything.  It  quite  shocks  me." 

"Just  because  my  faith  is  so  strong  that  I  can  afford  it. 
I  can  see  when  he  is  mistaken ;  but  he  is  a  genuine,  active, 
benevolent  man,  following  truth  when  he  sees  it,  and  get 
ting  a  good  deal  of  it,  and  most  important  truth,  too. 
We  've  got  to  get  truth  as  we  can  in  this  world,  just  as 
miners  dig  gold  out  of  the  mine  with  all  the  quartz,  and 
dirt,  and  dross;  but  it  pays." 

"Well,  now,  I  shall  try  my  skill,  and  do  my  best  to 
dispose  these  two  refractory  chemicals  to  a  union,"  said 
Eva.  "I'll  tell  you  how  let's  do.  I'll  interest  Dr. 
Campbell  in  Mr.  St.  John's  health.  I  '11  ask  him  to  study 
him  and  see  if  he  can't  take  care  of  him.  I  'ni  sure  he 
needs  taking  care  of." 

"And,"  said  Harry,  "why  not  interest  Mr.  St.  John  in 
Dr.  Campbell's  soul?  Why  shouldn't  he  try  to  convert 
him  from  the  error  of  his  ways  ?  " 

"That  would  be  capital,"  said  Eva.  "Let  each  convert 
the  other.  If  we  could  put  Dr.  Campbell  and  Mr.  St. 
John  together,  what  a  splendid  man  we  could  make  of 
them!" 

"Try  your  best,  my  dear;  but  meanwhile  I  have  three 
or  four  hours'  writing  to  do  this  evening." 

"Well,  then,  settle  yourself  down,  and  I  will  run  over 
and  expound  my  plans  to  the  good  old  ladies  over  the  way. 


140  WE  AND   OUE   NEIGHBORS 

I  am  getting  up  quite  an  intimacy  over  there;  Miss  Dorcas 
is  really  vastly  entertaining.  It 's  like  living  in  a  past 
age  to  hear  her  talk." 

"You  really  have  established  a  fashion  of  rushing  in 
upon  them  at  all  sorts  of  hours,"  said  Harry. 

"Yes,  but  they  like  it.  You  have  no  idea  what  nice 
things  they  say  to  me.  Even  old  Dinah  quivers  and  gig 
gles  with  delight  the  minute  she  sees  me  —  poor  old  soul ! 
You  see,  they  're  shut  up  all  alone  in  that  musty  old  house, 
like  enchanted  princesses,  and  gone  to  sleep  there;  and  I 
am  the  predestined  fairy  to  wake  them  up ! " 

Eva  said  this  as  she  was  winding  a  cloud  of  fleecy 
worsted  around  her  head,  and  Harry  was  settling  himself 
at  his  writing-table  in  a  little  alcove  curtained  off  from  the 
parlor. 

"Don't  keep  the  old  ladies  up  too  late,"  said  Harry. 

"Never  you  fear,7'  said  Eva.  "Perhaps  I  shall  stay  to 
see  Jack's  feet  washed  and  blanket  spread.  Those  are 
solemn  and  impressive  ceremonies  that  I  have  heard  de 
scribed,  but  never  witnessed." 

It  was  a  bright,  keen,  frosty,  starlight  evening,  and 
when  Eva  had  rung  the  door-bell  on  the  opposite  side,  she 
turned  and  looked  at  the  play  of  shadow  and  firelight  on 
her  own  window  curtains. 

Suddenly  she  noticed  a  dark  form  of  a  woman  coming 
from  an  alley  back  of  the  house,  and  standing  irresolute, 
looking  at  the  windows.  Then  she  drew  near  the  house, 
and  seemed  trying  to  read  the  name  on  the  door-plate. 

There  was  something  that  piqued  Eva's  curiosity  about 
these  movements,  and  just  as  the  door  was  opening  behind 
her  into  the  Vanderheyden  house,  the  strange  woman  turned 
away,  and  as  she  turned,  the  light  of  the  street  lamp 
flashed  strongly  on  her  face.  Its  expression  of  haggard 
pain  and  misery  was  something  that  struck  to  Eva's  heart, 
though  it  was  but  a  momentary  glimpse,  as  she  turned  to 


OUR  "EVENING"   PROJECTED  141 

go  into  the  house;  for,  after  all,  the  woman  was  nothing 
to  her,  and  the  glimpse  of  her  face  was  purely  an  accident, 
such  as  occurs  to  one  hundreds  of  times  in  the  streets  of 
a  city.  Still,  like  the  sound  of  a  sob  or  a  cry  from  one 
unknown,  the  misery  of  those  dark  eyes  struck  painfully 
to  Eva's  heart;  as  if  to  her,  young,  beloved,  gay  and 
happy,  some  of  the  ever-present  but  hidden  anguish  of  life 
—  the  great  invisible  mass  of  sorrow  —  had  made  an 
appeal. 

But  she  went  in  and  shut  the  door,  gave  one  sigh,  and 
dismissed  it. 


CHAPTER   XIV 

ME.    ST.    JOHN    IS    OUT-ARGUED 

A  WOMAN  has  two  vernal  seasons  in  her  life.  One  is 
the  fresh,  sweetbrier,  apple-blossom  spring  of  girlhood  — 
dewy,  bird-singing,  joyous,  and  transient.  The  other  is 
the  spring  of  young  marriage,  before  the  austere  labors  and 
severe  strains  of  real  life  commence.  It  is  the  spring  of 
wedding  presents,  of  first  housekeeping,  of  incipient,  un 
developed  matronage.  If  the  young  girl  is  charming,  with 
her  dawning  airs  of  womanhood,  her  inexperienced  na'ive 
assumptions,  her  grave,  ignorant  wisdom,  at  which  elders 
smile  indulgently  —  so  is  the  new-made  wife  with  her  little 
matronly  graces,  her  pretty  sense  of  responsibility  in  her 
new  world  of  power. 

In  the  first  period  the  young  girl  herself  is  the  object 
of  attention  and  devotion.  She  is  the  permitted  centre  of 
all  eyes,  the  leading  star  of  her  own  little  drama  of  life. 
But  with  marriage  the  centre  changes.  Self  begins  to  melt 
away  into  something  higher.  The  girl  recognizes  that  it 
is  no  longer  her  individuality  that  is  the  chief  thing,  but 
that  she  is  the  priestess  and  minister  of  a  family  state. 
The  home  becomes  her  centre,  and  to  her  home  passes  the 
charm  that  once  was  thrown  around  her  person.  The 
pride  that  she  may  have  had  in  self  becomes  a  pride  in  her 
home.  Her  home  is  the  new  impersonation  of  herself;  it 
is  her  throne,  her  empire.  How  often  do  we  see  the 
young  wife  more  sensitive  to  the  adornment  of  her  house 
than  the  adornment  of  her  person,  willing  even  to  retrench 
and  deny  in  the  last,  that  her  home  may  become  more 


MR.   ST.   JOHN   IS   OUT-ARGUED  143 

cheerful  and  attractive !  A  pretty  set  of  china  for  her  tea- 
table  goes  farther  with  her  than  a  gay  robe  for  herself. 
She  will  sacrifice  ribbons  and  laces  for  means  to  adorn  the 
sacred  recesses  which  have  become  to  her  an  expansion  of 
her  own  being. 

The  freshness  of  a  new  life  invests  every  detail  of  the 
freshly  arranged  menage.  Her  china,  her  bronzes,  her 
pictures,  her  silver,  her  table-cloths  and  napkins,  her  closets 
and  pantries,  all  speak  to  her  of  a  new  sense  of  possession 

—  a  new  and  different  hold  on  life.      Once  she  was  only 
a  girl,  moving  among  things  that  belonged  to  mamma  and 
papa;    now  she  is  a   matron,    surrounded   everywhere   by 
things  that  are  her  own  —  a  princess  in  her  own  little  king 
dom.     Nor  is  the  charm  lessened  that  she  no  longer  uses  the 
possessive  singular,    but  says   "our.'7      And  behind  those 
pronouns,  "  we  "  and  "  our,"  what  pleasant  security  !     What 
innocent  pharisaism  of  self-complacency,  as  each  congratu 
lates  the  other  on  "  our  "  ways,  "  our  "  plans,  "  our  "  arrange 
ments;  each,  the  while  sure  that  they  two  are  the  fortu 
nate  among  mankind,   and  that  all  who  are  not  blest  as 
they  are  proper  subjects  for  indulgent  pity.      "After  all, 
my  dear,"  says  he,  "what  can  you  expect  of  poor  Snooks? 

—  a  bachelor,    poor  fellow.      If   he   only  had  a  wife  like 
you,  now,"  etc.,  etc.      Or,  "I  can't  really  blame  Cynthia 
with  that  husband  of  hers,  Harry  dear.      If  I  were  married 
to  such  a  man,  I  should  act  like  a  little  fiend.      If  she  had 
only  such  a  husband  as  you,  now ! "     This  secret,  respecta 
ble,    mutual   admiration   society   of   married    life,    of    how 
much  courage  and  hope  is  it  the  parent!     For,  do  not  our 
failures   and   mistakes   often    come    from    discouragement? 
Does  not  every  human  being  need  a  believing  second  self, 
whose  support  and  approbation  shall  reinforce  one's  failing 
courage?     The  saddest  hours  of  life  are  when  we  doubt 
ourselves.      To    sensitive,    excitable    people,    who    expend 
nervous  energy  freely,   must  come  many  such   low  tides. 


144  WE  AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

"  Am  I  really  a  miserable  failure  —  a  poor,  good-for-no 
thing,  abortive  attempt  ?  "  In  such  'crises  we  need  another 
self  to  restore  our  equilibrium. 

Our  young  friends  were  just  in  the  second  spring  of 
life's  new  year.  They  were  as  fond  and  proud  of  their 
little  house  as  a  prince  of  his  palace  —  possibly  a  good  deal 
more  so.  They  were  proud  of  each  other.  Eva  felt  sure 
that  Harry  was  destined  to  the  high  places  of  the  literary 
world.  She  read  his  editorials  with  sincere  admiration, 
hid  his  poems  away  in  her  heart,  and  pasted  them  carefully 
in  her  scrap-book.  Fame  and  success  she  felt  sure  ought 
to  come  to  him,  and  would.  He  was  "such  a  faithful, 
noble-hearted  fellow,  and  worked  so  steadily."  And  he, 
with  what  pride  he  spoke  the  words  "my  wife"!  With 
what  exultation  repressed  under  an  air  of  playful  indiffer 
ence  he  brought  this  and  that  associate  in  to  dine,  and 
enjoyed  the  admiration  of  her  and  her  pretty  home,  and 
graceful,  captivating  ways.  He  liked  to  see  the  effect  of 
her  gay,  sparkling  conversation,  her  easy  grace,  on  these 
new  subjects;  for  Eva  was,  in  truth,  a  charming  woman. 
The  mixture  of  innocent  shrewdness,  of  sprightly  insight, 
of  bright  and  airy  fancy  about  her,  made  her  society  a 
thing  to  be  longed  after,  as  people  long  for  a  pleasant 
stimulant.  Like  all  bright,  earnest  young  men,  Harry 
wanted  to  "  lend  a  hand  "  to  make  the  world  around  him 
brighter  and  better,  and  had  his  ideas  of  what  a  charming, 
attractive  home  might  do  as  a  centre  to  many  hearts  in 
promoting  mutual  brotherhood  and  good  fellowship.  He 
had  not  a  doubt  of  their  little  social  venture  in  society, 
nor  that  Eva  was  precisely  the  person  to  make  of  their 
house  a  pleasant  resort,  to  be  in  herself  the  blending  and 
interpreting  medium  through  whom  differing  and  even  dis 
cordant  natures  should  be  brought  to  understand  the  good 
that  was  in  one  another. 

As  a  preparation  for  the  first  experiment,  Eva  had  com- 


MR.   ST.   JOHN   IS   OUT-ARGUED  145 

menced  by  inviting  Mr.  St.  John  to  dinner,  that  she 
might  enlist  his  approbation  of  her  scheme  and  have  time 
to  set  it  before  him  in  that  charming  fireside  hour,  when 
spirits,  like  flowers,  open  to  catch  the  dews  of  influence. 
After  dinner  Harry  had  an  engagement  at  the  printing- 
office,  and  left  Eva  the  field  all  to  herself;  and  she  man 
aged  her  cards  admirably.  Mr.  St.  John  had  been  little 
accustomed  to  the  society  of  cultured,  attractive  women; 
but  he  had  in  his  own  refined  nature  every  sensibility  to 
respond  agreeably  to  its  influences;  and  already  this  fire 
side  had  come  to  be  a  place  where  he  loved  to  linger. 
And  so,  when  she  had  him  comfortably  niched  in  his  cor 
ner,  she  opened  the  first  parallel  of  her  siege. 

"Now,  Mr.  St.  John,  you  have  been  preaching  to  us 
about  self-denial,  and  putting  us  all  up  to  deeds  of  self-sac 
rifice —  I  have  some  self-denying  work  to  propose  to  you." 

Mr.  St.  John  opened  his  blue  eyes  wide  at  this  exor 
dium,  and  looked  an  interrogation. 

"Well,  Mr.  St.  John,"  pursued  Eva,  "we  are  going  to 
have  little  social  reunions  at  our  house  every  Thursday, 
from  seven  till  ten,  for  the  purpose  of  promoting  good  feel 
ing  and  fellowship,  and  we  want  our  rector  to  be  one  of  us 
and  help  us." 

"Indeed,  Mrs.  Henderson,  I  have  not  the  least  social 
tact.  My  sphere  doesn't  lie  at  all  in  that  direction,"  said 
Mr.  St.  John  nervously.  "I  have  no  taste  for  general 
society. " 

"  Yes,  but  I  think  you  told  us  last  Sunday  we  were  not 
to  consult  our  tastes.  You  told  us  that  if  we  felt  a  strong 
distaste  for  any  particular  course,  it  might  possibly  show 
that  just  here  the  true  path  of  Christian  heroism  lay." 

"You  turn  my  words  upon  me,  Mrs.  Henderson.  I 
was  thinking  then  of  the  distaste  that  people  usually  feel 
for  visiting  the  poor  and  making  themselves  practically 
familiar  with  the  unlovely  side  of  life." 


146  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

"  Well,  but  may  it  not  apply  the  other  way  ?  You  are 
perfectly  familiar  and  at  home  among  the  poor,  but  you 
have  always  avoided  society  among  cultured  persons  of 
your  own  class.  May  not  the  real  self-denial  for  you  lie 
there?  You  have  a  fastidious  shrinking  from  strangers. 
May  it  not  be  your  duty  to  overcome  it1?  There  are  a 
great  many  I  know  in  our  circle  who  might  be  the  better 
for  knowing  you.  Have  you  a  right  to  shrink  back  from 
them  1 " 

Mr.  St.  John  moved  uneasily  in  his  chair. 

"Now,"  pursued  Eva,  "there's  a  young  Dr.  Campbell 
that  I  want  you  to  know.  To  be  sure,  he  isn't  a  believer 
in  the  Church  —  not  a  believer  at  all,  I  fear;  but  still 
a  charming,  benevolent,  kindly,  open-hearted  man,  and  I 
want  him  to  know  you,  and  come  under  good  influences." 

"I  don't  believe  I  'm  at  all  adapted,"  said  Mr.  St.  John 
hesitatingly. 

"Well,  dear  sir,  what  do  you  say  to  us  when  we  say  the 
same  about  mission  work?  Don't  you  tell  us  that  if  we 
honestly  try  we  shall  learn  to  adapt  ourselves  ? " 

"That  is  true,"  said  St.  John  frankly. 

"Besides,"  said  Eva,  "Mr.  St.  John,  Dr.  Campbell 
might  do  you  good.  All  your  friends  feel  that  you  are 
too  careless  of  your  health.  Indeed,  we  all  feel  great  con 
cern  about  it,  and  you  might  learn  something  of  Dr.  Camp 
bell  in  this." 

Thus  Eva  pursued  her  advantage  with  that  fluent  ability 
with  which  a  pretty  young  woman  at  her  own  fireside 
always  gets  the  best  of  the  argument.  Mr.  St.  John, 
attacked  on  the  weak  side  of  conscientiousness,  was  obliged 
at  last  to  admit  that  to  spend  an  evening  with  agreeable, 
cultivated,  well-dressed  people  might  be  occasionally  as 
much  a  shepherd's  duty  as  to  sit  in  the  close,  ill-smelling 
rooms  of  poverty  and  listen  to  the  croonings  and  maunder- 
ings  of  the  ill-educated,  improvident,  and  foolish,  who 


MR.    ST.    JOHN   IS   OUT-ARGUED  147 

make  so  large  a  proportion  of  the  less  fortunate  classes  of 
society.  It  had  been  suggested  to  him  that  a  highly 
educated,  agreeable  young  doctor,  who  talked  materialism 
and  dissented  from  the  Thirty-Nine  Articles,  might  as 
properly  be  borne  with  as  a  drinking  young  mechanic  who 
talked  unbelief  of  a  lower  and  less  respectable  order. 

Now  it  so  happened,  by  one  of  those  unexpected  coinci 
dences  that  fall  out  in  the  eternal  order  of  things,  that  Eva 
was  reinforced  in  her  course  of  argument  by  a  silent  and 
subtle  influence,  of  which  she  was  herself  scarcely  aware. 
The  day  seldom  passed  that  one  or  other  of  her  sisters  did 
not  form  a  part  of  her  family  circle,  and  on  this  day  of  all 
others  the  fates  had  willed  that  Angelique  should  come  up 
to  work  on  her  Christmas  presents  by  Eva's  fireside. 

Imagine,  therefore,  as  the  scene  of  this  conversation,  a 
fire-lighted  room,  the  evening  flicker  of  the  blaze  falling  in 
flecks  and  flashes  over  books  and  pictures,  and  Mr.  St. 
John  in  a  dark,  sheltered  corner,  surveying  without  being 
surveyed,  listening  to  Eva's  animated  logic,  and  yet  watch 
ing  a  very  pretty  tableau  in  the  opposite  corner. 

There  sat  Angelique,  listening  to  the  conversation,  with 
the  firelight  falling  in  flashes  on  her  golden  hair  and  her 
lap  full  of  worsteds  —  rosy,  pink,  blue,  lilac,  and  yellow. 
Her  little  hands  were  busy  in  some  fleecy  wonder,  designed 
to  adorn  the  Christmas-tree  for  the  mission  school  of  his 
church;  and  she  knit  and  turned  and  twisted  the  rosy 
mystery  with  an  air  of  grave  interest,  the  while  giving  an 
attentive  ear  to  the  conversation. 

Mr.  St.  John  was  not  aware  that  he  was  looking  at  her; 
in  fact,  he  supposed  he  was  listening  to  Eva,  who  was 
eloquently  setting  forth  to  him  all  the  good  points  in  Dr. 
Campbell's  character,  and  the  reasons  why  it  was  his  duty 
to  seek  and  cultivate  his  acquaintance;  but  while  she  spoke 
and  while  he  replied  he  saw  the  little  hands  moving,  and 
a  sort  of  fairy  web  weaving,  and  the  face  changing  as, 


148  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

without  speaking  a  word,  she  followed  with  bright,  inno 
cent  sympathy  the  course  of  the  conversation. 

When  Eva,  with  a  becoming  air  of  matronly  gravity, 
lectured  him  for  his  reckless  treatment  of  his  own  health, 
and  his  want  of  a  proper  guide  on  that  subject,  Angelique's 
eyes  seemed  to  say  the  same;  and  sometimes,  when  Eva 
turned  just  the  faintest  light  of  satire  on  the  ascetic  notions 
to  which  he  was  prone,  those  same  eyes  sparkled  with  that 
frank  gayety  that  her  dimpled  face  seemed  made  to  express. 
Now  the  kitten  catches  at  her  thread,  and  she  stops,  and 
bends  over  and  dangles  the  ball,  and  laughs  softly  to  her 
self,  and  St.  John  from  his  dark  corner  watches  the  play. 
There  is  something  of  the  kitten  in  her,  he  thinks.  Even 
her  gravest  words  have  suggested  the  air  of  a  kitten  on 
good  behavior,  and  perhaps  she  may  be  a  naughty,  wicked 
kitten  —  who  knows?  A  kitten  lying  in  wait  to  catch 
unwary  birds  and  mice!  But  she  looked  so  artless  —  so 
innocent !  —  her  little  head  bent  on  one  side  like  a  flower, 
and  her  eyes  sparkling  as  if  she  were  repressing  a  laugh ! 
—  a  nervous  idea  shot  through  the  conversation  to  Mr.  St. 
John's  heart.  What  if  this  girl  should  laugh  at  him1? 
St.  Jerome  himself  might  have  been  vulnerable  to  a  poi 
soned  arrow  like  this.  What  if  he  really  were  getting  ab 
surd  notions  and  ways  in  the  owl-like  recesses  and  retire 
ments  of  his  study  —  growing  rusty,  unfit  for  civilized  life  ? 
Clearly  it  was  his  duty  to  "come  forth  into  the  light  of 
things,"  and  before  he  left  that  evening  he  gave  his  pledge 
to  Eva  that  he  would  be  one  of  the  patrons  of  her  new 
social  enterprise. 

It  is  to  be  confessed  that  as  he  went  home  that  night  he 
felt  that  duty  had  never  worn  an  aspect  so  agreeable.  It 
was  certainly  his  place  as  a  good  fisher  of  men  to  study  the 
habits  of  the  cultured,  refined,  and  influential  portion  of 
society,  as  well  as  of  its  undeveloped  children.  Then,  he 
didn't  say  it  to  himself,  but  the  scene  where  these  investi- 


MR.   ST.   JOHN   IS   OUT-ARGUED  149 

gations  were  to  be  pursued  rose  before  him  insensibly  as 
one  where  Angelique  was  to  be  one  of  the  entertainers. 
It  would  give  him  a  better  opportunity  of  studying  the 
genus  and  habits  of  that  variety  of  the  Church  militant  who 
train  in  the  uniform  of  fashionable  girls,  and  to  decide  the 
yet  doubtful  question  whether  they  had  any  genuine  capa 
city  for  Church  work.  Angelique 's  evident  success  with 
her  class  was  a  puzzle  to  him,  and  he  thought  he  would 
like  to  know  her  better,  and  see  if  real,  earnest,  serious 
purposes  could  exist  under  that  gay  exterior. 

Somehow,  he  could  not  fancy  those  laughing  eyes  and 
that  willful,  curly,  golden  hair  under  the  stiff  cap  of  a 
Sister  of  Charity;  and  he  even  doubted  whether  a  gray 
cloak  would  seem  as  appropriate  as  the  blue  robe  and 
ermine  cape  where  the  poor  little  child  had  rested  her 
scarred  cheek.  He  liked  to  think  of  her  just  as  she  looked 
then  and  there.  And  why  shouldn't  he  get  acquainted 
with  her  1  If  he  was  ever  going  to  form  a  sisterhood  of 
good  works,  certainly  it  was  his  duty  to  understand  the 
sisters.  Clearly  it  was! 


CHAPTER  XV 

GETTING    EEADY    TO    BEGIN 

"  HAVING  company "  is  one  of  those  incidents  of  life 
which  in  all  circles,  high  or  low,  cause  more  or  less  search- 
ings  of  heart.  Even  the  moderate  "tea-fight"  of  good  old 
times  necessitated  not  only  anxious  thought  in  the  hostess 
herself,  but  also  a  mustering  and  review  of  best  "bibs  and 
tuckers  "  through  the  neighborhood.  But  to  undertake  a 
"serial  sociable''  in  New  York,  in  this  day  of  serials,  was 
something  even  graver,  causing  many  thoughts  and  words 
in  many  houses. 

Witness  the  following  specimens :  — 

"I  confess,  Nelly,  /can't  understand  Eva's  ways,"  said 
Aunt  Maria,  the  morning  of  the  first  Thursday.  "She 
don't  come  to  me  for  advice;  but  I  confess  I  don't  under 
stand  her." 

Aunt  Maria  was  in  a  gloomy,  severe  state  of  mind,  owing 
to  the  contumacy  and  base  ingratitude  of  Alice  in  rejecting 
her  interposition  and  care,  and  she  came  down  this  morn 
ing  to  signify  her  displeasure  to  Nelly  at  the  way  she  had 
been  treated. 

"I  don't  know  what  you  mean,  sister,"  said  Mrs.  Van 
Arsdel  deprecatingly.  "I'm  sure  I  don't  know  of  any 
thing  that  Eva's  been  doing  lately." 

"Why,  these  evenings  of  hers;  I  don't  understand 
them.  Setting  out  to  have  receptions  in  that  little  out-of- 
the-way  shell  of  hers !  Why,  who  '11  go  1  Nobody  wants 
to  ramble  off  up  there,  and  not  get  to  anything  after  all. 
It 's  going  to  be  a  sort  of  mixed-up  affair  —  newspaper 


GETTING   READY   TO   BEGIN  151 

men,  and  people  that  nobody  knows  —  all  well  enough  in 
their  way,  perhaps;  but  I  sha'n't  be  mixed  up  in  it." 
Aunt  Maria  nodded  her  head  gloomily,  and  the  bows  and 
feathers  on  her  hat  quivered  protestingly. 

"Oh,  they  are  going  to  be  just  unpretending  sociable 
little  gatherings,"  said  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel.  "Just  the  family 
and  a  few  friends;  and  I  think  they  are  going  to  be  plea 
sant.  I  wish  you  would  go,  Maria.  Eva  will  be  disap 
pointed.  " 

"No,  she  won't.  It's  evident,  Nelly,  that  your  girls 
don't  any  of  them  care  about  me,  or  regard  anything  I  say. 
Well,  I  only  hope  they  mayn't  live  to  repent  it;  that's 
all." 

Aunt  Maria  said  this  with  that  menacing  sniff  with 
which  people  in  a  bad  humor  usually  dispense  Christian 
charity.  The  dark  awfulness  of  the  hope  expressed  really 
chilled  poor  little  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel' s  blood.  From  long 
habits  of  dependence  upon  her  sister,  she  had  come  to 
regard  her  displeasure  as  one  of  the  severer  evils  of  life. 
To  keep  the  peace  with  Maria,  as  far  as  she  herself  was  con 
cerned,  would  have  been  easy.  Contention  was  fatiguing 
to  her.  It  was  a  trouble  to  have  the  responsibility  of 
making  up  her  own  mind ;  and  she  was  quite  willing  that 
Maria  should  carry  her  through  the  journey  of  life,  buy 
her  tickets,  choose  her  hotels,  and  settle  with  her  cabmen. 
But,  complicated  with  a  husband,  and  a  family  of  bright, 
independent  daughters,  each  endowed  with  a  separate  will 
of  her  own,  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel  led  on  the  whole  a  hard  life. 
People  who  hate  trouble  generally  get  a  good  deal  of  it. 
It 's  all  very  well  for  a  gentle  acquiescent  spirit  to  be  car 
ried  through  life  by  one  bearer.  But  when  half  a  dozen 
bearers  quarrel  and  insist  on  carrying  one  opposite  ways, 
the  more  facile  the  spirit,  the  greater  the  trouble. 

Mrs.  Van  Arsdel,  in  fact,  passed  a  good  deal  of  her  life 
in  being  talked  over  to  one  course  of  conduct  by  Aunt 


152  WE   AND    OUE   NEIGHBORS 

Maria,  and  talked  back  again  by  her  girls.  She  resembled 
a  weak,  peaceable  hamlet  on  the  border-land  between 
France  and  Germany,  taken  and  retaken  with  much  wear 
and  tear  of  spirit,  and  heartily  wishing  peace  at  any  price. 

"I  don't  see  how  Eva  is  going  to  afford  all  this,"  con 
tinued  Aunt  Maria  gloomily. 

"Oh!  there's  to  be  no  evening  entertainment,  nothing 
but  a  little  tea,  and  biscuit,  and  sponge-cake,  in  the  most 
social  way,"  pleaded  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel. 

"But  all  this,  every  week,  in  time  comes  to  a  good 
deal,"  said  Aunt  Maria.  "Now,  if  Eva  would  put  all  the 
extra  trouble  and  expense  of  these  evenings  into  one  good 
handsome  party  of  select  people  and  have  it  over  with, 
why,  that  would  be  something  worth  while,  and  I  would 
help  her  get  it  up.  Such  a  party  stands  for  something. 
But  she  doesn't  come  to  me  for  advice.  I 'm  a  superan 
nuated  old  woman,  I  suppose,"  and  Aunt  Maria  sighed  in 
a  way  heart-breaking  to  her  peace-loving  sister. 

"Indeed,  Maria,  you  are  wrong.  You  are  provoked 
now.  You  don't  mean  so." 

"I'm  —  not  provoked.  Do  you  suppose  I  care?  I 
don't!  but  I  can  see,  I  suppose!  I'm  not  quite  blind 
yet,  I  hope,  and  I  sha'n't  go  where  I  'mnot  wanted.  And 
now,  if  you  '11  give  me  those  samples,  Nelly,  I  '11  go  to 
Arnold's  and  Stewart's  and  look  up  that  dress  for  you, 
and  then  I  '11  take  your  laces  to  the  mender's.  It 's  a  good 
morning's  work  to  go  up  to  that  dark  alley  where  she 
rooms;  but  I'll  do  it,  now  I'm  about  it.  I'm  not  so 
worn  out  yet  but  what  I  am  acceptable  to  do  errands  for 
you,"  said  Aunt  Maria,  with  gloomy  satisfaction. 

"  Oh,  Maria,  how  can  you  talk  so ! "  said  little  Mrs. 
Van  Arsdel,  with  tears  in  her  eyes.  "You  really  are 
unjust." 

"There's  no  use  in  discussing  matters,  Nelly.  Give 
me  the  patterns  and  the  laces,"  said  Aunt  Maria  obdu- 


GETTING  READY   TO   BEGIX  153 

rately.  "Here!  I'll  sort  'em  out.  You  never  have 
anything  ready,'7  she  said,  opening  her  sister's  drawer,  and 
taking  right  and  left  such  articles  as  she  deemed  proper, 
with  as  much  composure  as  if  her  sister  had  been  a  seven- 
year-old  child.  "  There !  "  she  said,  shutting  the  drawer, 
"now  I  'm  ready.  Good  -  morning!  "  —  and  away  she 
sailed,  leaving  her  sister  abased  in  spirit,  and  vaguely  con 
trite  for  she  couldn't  tell  what. 

Aunt  Maria  had  the  most  disagreeable  habit  of  venting 
her  indignation  on  her  sister,  by  going  to  most  uncomfort 
able  extremes  of  fatiguing  devotion  to  her  service.  With 
a  brow  of  gloom  and  an  air  of  martyrdom,  she  would  ex 
plore  shops,  tear  up  and  down  staircases,  perform  fatiguing 
pilgrimages  for  Nelly  and  the, girls;  piling  all  these  coals 
of  fire  on  their  heads,  and  looking  all  the  while  so  miser 
ably  abused  and  heart-broken  that  it  required  stronger 
discrimination  than  poor  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel  was  gifted  with 
not  to  feel  herself  a  culprit. 

"  Only  think,  your  Aunt  Maria  says  she  won't  go  this 
evening,"  she  said  in  a  perplexed  and  apprehensive  tone 
to  her  girls. 

"Glad  of  it,"  said  Alice,  and  the  words  were  echoed  by 
Angelique. 

"Oh,  girls,  you  oughtn't  to  feel  so  about  your  aunt!  " 

"We  don't,"  said  Alice;  "but  as  long  as  she  feels  so 
about  us,  it 's  just  as  well  not  to  have  her  there.  We 
girls  are  all  going  to  do  our  best  to  make  the  first  evening 
a  success,  so  that  everybody  shall  have  a  good  time  and 
want  to  come  again ;  and  if  Aunt  Maria  goes  in  her  present 
pet,  she  would  be  as  bad  as  Edgar  Poe's  raven." 

"  Just  fancy  our  having  her  on  our  hands,  saying  '  never 
more  '  at  stated  intervals,"  said  Angelique,  laughing; 
"why,  it  would  upset  everything!  " 

"Angelique,  you  oughtn't  to  make  fun  of  your  aunt," 
said  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel,  with  an  attempt  at  reproving  gravity. 


154  WE  AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

"I'm  sure  it's  the  nicest  thing  we  can  make  of  her, 
mammy  dear,"  said  Angelique ;  "it's  better  to  laugh  than 
to  cry  any  time.  Oh,  Aunt  Maria  will  keep,  never  fear. 
She  '11  clear  off  by  and  by,  like  a  northeast  rain-storm,  and 
then  we  shall  like  her  as  well  as  ever;  sha'n't  we,  girls? " 

"Oh  yes;  she  always  comes  round  after  a  while,"  said 
Alice. 

"Well,  now  I'm  going  up  to  help  Eva  get  the  rooms 
ready,"  said  Angelique,  and  out  she  fluttered,  like  a  flossy 
bit  of  thistledown. 

Angelique  belonged  to  the  corps  of  the  laughing  saints 
—  a  department  not  always  recognized  by  the  straiter  sort 
in  the  Church  militant,  but  infinitely  effective  and  to  the 
purpose  in  the  battle  of  life.  Her  heart  was  a  tender  but 
a  gay  one  —  perhaps  the  lovingness  of  it  kept  it  bright; 
for  love  is  a  happy  divinity,  and  Angelique  loved  every 
body,  and  saw  the  best  side  of  everything;  besides,  just 
now  she  was  barely  seventeen,  and  thought  the  world  a 
very  nice  place.  She  was  the  very  life  of  the  household, 
the  one  who  loved  to  run  and  wait  and  tend;  who  could 
stop  gaps  and  fill. spaces,  and  liked  to  do  it;  and  so,  this 
day,  she  devoted  herself  to  Eva's  service  in  the  hundred 
somethings  that  pertain  to  getting  a  house  in  order  for  an 
evening  reception. 

On  the  opposite  side  of  the  way  the  projected  hospitali 
ties  awoke  various  conflicting  emotions. 

"Dinah,  I  don't  really  know  whether  I  shall  go  to  that 
company  to-night  or  not,"  said  Mrs.  Betsey  confidentially 
to  Dinah  over  her  ironing-table. 

"Land  sakes,  Mis'  Betsey,"  said  Dinah,  with  her  accus 
tomed  giggle,  "how  you  talk!  What  you  'feard  on?  " 

Mrs.  Betsey  had  retreated  to  the  kitchen,  to  indulge 
herself  with  Dinah  in  tremors  and  changes  of  emotion 
which  had  worn  out  the  patience  of  Miss  Dorcas  in  the 


GETTING  READY   TO  BEGIN  155 

parlor.  That  good  lady,  having  made  up  her  mind  defini 
tively  to  go  and  take  Betsey  with  her,  was  indisposed  to 
repeat  every  half  hour  the  course  of  argument  by  which 
she  had  demonstrated  to  her  that  it  was  the  proper  thing 
to  do. 

But  the  fact  was,  that  poor  Mrs.  Betsey  was  terribly 
fluttered  by  the  idea  of  going  into  company  again.  Years 
had  passed  in  that  old  dim  house,  with  the  solemn  clock 
tick-tocking  in  the  corner,  and  the  sunbeams  streaming 
duskily  at  given  hours  through  the  same  windows,  with  no 
sound  of  coming  or  going  footsteps.  There  the  two  ancient 
sisters  had  been  working,  reading,  talking,  round  and 
round  on  the  same  unvarying  track,  for  weeks,  months,  and 
years,  and  now,  suddenly,  had  come  a  change.  The  pretty, 
gay,  little  housekeeper  across  the  way  had  fluttered  in  with 
a  whole  troop  of  invisible  elves  of  persuasion  in  the  very 
folds  of  her  garments,  and  had  cajoled  and  charmed  them 
into  a  promise  to  be  supporters  of  her  "evenings,"  and 
Miss  Dorcas  was  determined  to  go.  But  all  ye  of  woman 
kind  know  that  after  every  such  determination  comes  a 
review  of  the  wherewithal,  and  many  tremors. 

Now  Miss  Dorcas  was  self-sufficing  and  self-sustained. 
She  knew  herself  to  be  Miss  Dorcas  Vanderheyden,  in  the 
first  place ;  and  she  had  a  general  confidence,  by  right  of 
her  family  and  position,  that  all  her  belongings  were  the 
right  things.  They  might  be  out  of  fashion  —  so  much 
the  worse  for  the  fashion;  Miss  Dorcas  wore  them  with  a 
cheerful  courage.  Yet,  as  she  frequently  remarked, 
"sooner  or  later,  if  you  let  things  lie,  fashion  always  comes 
round  to  them."  They  had  come  round  to  her  many  times 
in  the  course  of  her  life,  and  always  found  her  ready  for 
them.  But  Mrs.  Betsey  was  timorous,  and  had  a  large 
allowance  of  what  the  phrenologists  call  "  approbativeness. " 
In  her  youth  she  had  been  a  fashionable  young  belle,  and 
now  she  had  as  many  flutters  and  tremors  about  her  gray 


156  WE  AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

curls  and  her  caps  as  in  the  days  when  she  sat  up  all  night 
in  an  armchair  with  her  hair  dressed  and  powdered  for  a 
ball.  In  fact,  an  old  lady's  cap  is  undeniably  a  tender 
point.  One  might  imagine  it  to  be  a  sort  of  shrine  or  last 
retreat  in  which  all  her  youthful  love  of  dress  finds  asylum ; 
and,  in  estimating  her  fitness  for  any  scene  of  festivity, 
the  cap  is  the  first  consideration.  So  when  Dinah  chuckled, 
"What  ye  'feard  on,  honey?"  Mrs.  Betsey  came  out  with 
it:  — 

"Dinah,  I  don't  know  which  of  my  caps  to  wear." 

"Lor'  sakes,  Mis'  Betsey,  wear  yer  new  one.  What's 
to  hender  ? " 

"Well,  you  see,  it's  trimmed  with  lilac  ribbons,  and 
the  shade  don't  go  with  my  new  brown  gown;  they  look 
horridly  together.  Dorcas  never  does  notice  such  things, 
but  they  don't  go  well  together.  I  tried  to  tell  Dorcas 
about  it,  but  she  shut  me  up,  saying  I  was  always  fussy." 

"Well,  laws!  then,  honey,  wear  your  other  cap  —  it's 
a  right  nice  un  now,"  said  Dinah  in  a  coaxing  tone. 

"  Trimmed  with  white  ribbon "  —  said  Mrs.  Betsey, 
ruminating;  "but  you  see,  Dinah,  that  ribbon  has  really 
got  quite  yellow;  and  there  's  a  spot  on  one  of  the  strings," 
she  added  in  a  tone  of  poignant  emotion. 

"Well,  now,  I  tell  ye  what  to  do,"  said  Dinah;  "you 
jest  wear  your  new  cap  with  them  lay  lock  ribbins,  and 
wear  your  black  silk:  that  ar  looks  illegant  now." 

"But  my  black  silk  is  so  old;  it 's  pieced  under  the  arm, 
and  beginning  to  fray  in  the  gathers." 

"Land  sake,  Mis'  Betsey!  who's  a-goin'  to  look  under 
your  arm?"  said  Dinah.  "They  ain't  a-goin'  to  set  you 
up  under  one  o'  them  sterryscopes  to  be  looked  at,  be 
they1?  You'll  do  to  pass  now,  I  tell  ye;  now  don't  go 
to  gettin'  fluttered  and  'steriky,  Mis'  Betsey.  Why  don't 
ye  go  right  along,  like  Miss  Dorcas  ?  She  don't  have  no 
megrims  and  tantrums  'bout  what  she  's  goin'  to  wear." 


GETTING  READY   TO  BEGIN  157 

Dinah's  tolerant  spirit  in  admitting  this  discussion  was, 
however,  a  real  relief  to  Mrs.  Betsey.  Like  various  liquors 
which  are  under  a  necessity  of  working  themselves  clear, 
Mrs.  Betsey  found  a  certain  amount  of  talk  necessary  to 
clear  her  mind  when  proceeding  to  act  in  any  emergency, 
and  for  this  purpose  a  listener  was  essential ;  but  Dorcas 
was  so  entirely  above  such  fluctuations  as  hefs  —  so  posi 
tive  and  definite  in  all  her  judgments  and  conclusions  — 
that  she  could  not  enjoy  in  her  society  the  unlimited 
amount  of  discussion  necessary  to  clarify  her  mental  vision. 

It  was  now  about  the  fifth  or  sixth  time  that  all  the 
possibilities  with  regard  to  her  wardrobe  had  been  up  for 
consideration  that  day;  till  Miss  Dorcas,  who  had  borne 
with  her  heroically  for  a  season,  had  finally  closed  the  dis 
cussion  by  recommending  a  chapter  in  "Watts  on  the 
Mind"  which  said  a  great  many  unpleasant  things  about 
people  who  occupy  themselves  too  much  with  trifles,  and 
thus  Mrs.  Betsey  was  driven  to  unbosom  herself  to  Dinah. 

"Then,  again,  there's  Jack,"  she  added;  "I'm  sure  I 
don't  know  what  he  '11  think  of  our  both  being  out;  there 
never  such  a  thing  happened  before." 

"Land  sake,  Mis'  Betsey,  jest  as  if  Jack  cared!  Why, 
he  '11  stay  with  me.  I  '11  see  arter  him  —  I  will." 

"Well,  you  must  be  good  to  him,  Dinah,"  said  Mrs. 
Betsey  apprehensively. 

"Ain't  I  allers  good  to  him?  I  don't  set  him  up 
for  a  graven  image  and  fall  down  and  washup  him,  to  be 
sure;  but  Jack  has  good  times  with  me,  if  I  do  make  him 
mind." 

The  fact  was,  that  Dinah  often  seconded  the  disciplinary 
views  of  Miss  Dorcas  with  the  strong  arm,  pulling  Jack 
backward  by  the  tail,  and  correcting  him  with  vigorous 
thumps  of  the  broomstick  when  he  fell  into  those  furors  of 
barking  which  were  his  principal  weakness. 

Dinah  had  all  the  sociable  instincts  of  her  race ;  and  it 


158  WE   AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

moved  her  indignation  that  the  few  acquaintances  who 
found  their  way  to  the  forsaken  old  house  should  be  terri 
fied  and  repelled  by  such  distracted  tumults  as  Jack  gener 
ally  created  when  the  door-bell  rang.  Hence  her  attitude 
toward  him  had  so  often  been  belligerent  that  poor  Mrs. 
Betsey  felt  small  confidence  in  leaving  him  to  the  trying 
separation  of  the  evening  under  Dinah's  care. 

"Well,  Dinah,  you  won't  whip  Jack  if  he  does  bark? 
I  dare  say  he  '11  be  lonesome.  You  must  make  allowances 
for  him." 

"Oh,  laws,  yes,  honey,  I'll  make  'lowance,  never  you 
fear." 

"And  you  really  think  the  black  dress  will  do?" 

"Jest  as  sartin  as  I  be  that  I  'm  here  a-ironin'  this  'ere 
pillow-bier.  Why,  honey,  you  '11  look  like  a  pictur',  you 
will." 

"Oh,    Dinah,  I  'm  an  old  woman." 

"Well,  honey,  what  if  you  be?  Land  sakes,  don't  I 
remember  when  you  was  the  belle  of  New  York  city? 
Lord  love  ye !  Them  was  days !  When  't  was  all  comin' 
and  goin',  hosses  a-prancin',  house  full,  and  fellers  fairly 
a-tumblin'  over  each  other  jest  to  get  a  look  at  ye.  Laws, 
honey,  ye  was  wuth  lookin'  at  in  dem  days." 

"Oh,  Dinah,  you  silly  old  soul,  what  nonsense  you 
talk!" 

"Well,  honey,  you  know  you  was  de  handsomest  gal 
goin'.  Now  you  knows  you  was,"  said  Dinah,  chuckling 
and  shaking  her  portly  sides. 

"I  suppose  I  wasn't  bad  looking,"  said  Mrs.  Betsey, 
laughing  in  turn;  and  the  color  flushed  in  her  delicate, 
faded  cheeks,  and  her  pretty  bright  eyes  grew  misty  with 
a  thought  of  all  the  little  triumphs,  prides,  and  regrets  of 
years  ago. 

To  say  the  truth,  Mrs.  Betsey,  though  past  the  noontime 
of  attraction,  was  a  very  pretty  old  woman.  Her  hands 


GETTING  READY  TO   BEGIN  159 

were  still  delicate  and  white,  her  skin  was  of  lily  fairness, 
and  her  hair  like  fine-spun  silver;  and  she  retained  still 
all  the  nice  instincts  and  habits  of  the  woman  who  has 
known  herself  charming.  She  still  felt  the  discord  of  a 
shade  in  her  ribbons  like  a  false  note  in  music,  and  was 
annoyed  by  the  slightest  imperfection  of  her  dress,  however 
concealed,  to  a  degree  which  seemed  at  times  wearisome 
and  irrational  to  her  stronger-minded  sister. 

But  Miss  Dorcas,  who  had  carried  her  in  her  arms,  a 
heart-broken  wreck  snatched  from  the  waves  of  a  defeated 
life,  bore  with  her  as  heroically  as  we  ever  can  bear  with 
another  whose  nature  is  wholly  of  a  different  make  and 
texture  from  our  own.  In  general,  she  made  up  her  mind 
with  a  considerable  share  of  good  sense  as  to  what  it  was 
best  for  Betsey  to  do,  and  then  made  her  do  it,  by  that 
power  which  a  strong  and  steady  nature  exercises  over  a 
weaker  one. 

Miss  Dorcas  had  made  up  her  mind  that  more  society, 
and  some  little  change  in  her  modes  of  life,  would  be  a 
benefit  to  her  sister;  she  had  taken  a  strong  fancy  to  Eva, 
and  really  looked  forward  to  her  evenings  as  something  to 
give  a  new  variety  and  interest  in  life. 

"Now,  Jim,"  said  Alice  in  a  monitory  tone,  "you 
know  we  all  depend  on  you  to  manage  this  thing  just  right 
to-night.  You  mustn't  be  too  lively  and  frighten  the  seri 
ous  folks;  but  you  must  keep  things  moving,  just  as  you 
know  how.'7 

"Well,  are  you  going  to  have  '  our  rector  '  ?  "  said  Jim. 

"  Certainly.      Mr.  St.  John  will  be  there. " 

"And,  of  course,  our  little  Angie,"  said  Jim. 

"  Certainly.  Angie,  and  mamma,  and  papa,  and  I,  shall 
all  be  there,"  said  Alice,  with  dignity.  "Now,  Jim!" 

The  exclamation  was  addressed  not  to  anything  which 
this  young  gentleman  had  said,  but  to  a  certain  wicked 


160  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

sparkle  in  his  eye  which  Alice  thought  predicted  coming 
mischief. 

"What 's  the  matter  now?  "  said  Jim. 

"I  know  just  what  you  're  thinking,"  said  Alice;  "and 
now,  Jim,  you  mustn't  look  that  way  to-night." 

"  Look  what  way !  " 

"Well,  you  mustn't  in  any  way  —  look,  sign,  gesture, 
or  word  —  direct  anybody's  attention  to  Mr.  St.  John  and 
Angie.  Of  course  there's  nothing  there;  it 's  all  a  fancy 
of  your  own  —  a  very  absurd  one;  but  I  've  known  people 
made  very  uncomfortable  by  such  absurd  suggestions." 

"Well,  am  I  to  wear  green  spectacles  to  keep  my  eyes 
from  looking  ? " 

"You  are  to  do  just  right,  Jim,  and  nobody  knows  how 
that  is  to  be  done  better  than  you  do.  You  know  that 
you  have  the  gift  of  entertaining,  and  there  isn't  a  mortal 
creature  that  you  can't  please,  if  you  try;  and  you  mustn't 
talk  to  those  you  like  best  to-night,  but  bestow  yourself 
wherever  a  hand  is  needed.  You  must  entertain  those  old 
ladies  over  the  way,  and  get  acquainted  with  Mr.  St. 
John,  and  talk  to  the  pretty  Quaker  woman;  in  short, 
make  yourself  generally  useful." 

"0.  K.,"  said  Jim.  "I  '11  be  on  hand.  I  '11  make  love 
to  all  the  old  ladies,  and  let  the  parson  admonish  me,  as 
meek  as  Moses;  and  I  '11  look  right  the  other  way  if  I  see 
him  looking  at  Angie.  Anything  more? " 

"No,  that  '11  do,"  said  Alice,  laughing.  "Only  do  your 
best,  and  it  will  be  good  enough." 

Eva  was  busy  about  her  preparations,  when  Dr.  Camp 
bell  came  in  to  borrow  a  book. 

"Now,  Dr.  Campbell,"  said  she,  "you're  just  the 
man  I  wanted  to  see.  I  must  tell  you  that  one  grand 
reason  why  I  want  to  be  sure  and  secure  you  for  our  even 
ings,  and  this  one  in  particular,  is  I  have  caught  our  rector 


GETTING  READY   TO   BEGIN  161 

and  got  his  promise  to  come,  and  I  want  you  to  study  him 
critically,  for  I  'm  afraid  he  's  in  the  way  to  get  to  heaven 
long  before  we  do  if  he  isn't  looked  after.  He  's  not  in 
the  least  conscious  of  it,  but  he  does  need  attention." 

Dr.  Campbell  was  a  hale  young  man  of  twenty-five; 
blonde,  vigorous,  high  strung,  active,  and  self-confident, 
and  as  keen  set  after  medical  and  scientific  facts  as  a  race 
horse  for  the  goal.  As  a  general  thing,  he  had  no  special 
fancy  for  clergymen ;  but  a  clergyman  as  a  physical  study, 
a  possible  verification  of  some  of  his  theories,  was  an  object 
of  interest,  and  he  readily  promised  Eva  that  he  would 
spare  no  pains  in  making  Mr.  St.  John's  acquaintance. 

"Now,  drolly  enough,"  said  Eva,  "we  're  going  to  have 
a  Quaker  preacher  here.  I  went  in  to  invite  Ruth  and  her 
husband ;  and  lo,  they  have  got  a  celebrated  minister  stay 
ing  with  them,  one  Sibyl  Selwyn.  She  is  as  lovely  as  an 
angel  in  a  pressed  crape  cap  and  dove-colored  gown;  but 
what  Mr.  St.  John  will  think  about  her  I  don't  know." 

"Oh,  Mrs.  Henderson,  there'll  be  trouble  there,  depend 
on  it,"  said  Dr.  Campbell.  "He  won't  recognize  her  ordi 
nation,  and  very  likely  she  won't  recognize  his.  You  see, 
I  was  brought  up  among  the  Friends.  I  know  all  about 
them.  If  your  friend  Sibyl  should  have  a  '  concern '  laid 
on  her  for  your  Mr.  St.  John,  she  would  tell  him  some 
wholesome  truths. " 

"Dear  me,"  said  Eva.  "I  hope  she  won't  have  a  '  con 
cern  '  the  very  first  evening.  It  would  be  embarrassing. " 

"Oh  no;  to  tell  the  truth,  these  Quaker  preachers  are 
generally  delightful  women,"  said  Dr.  Campbell.  "I'm 
sure  I  ought  to  say  so,  for  my  good  aunt  that  brought  me 
up  was  one  of  them,  and  I  don't  doubt  that  Sibyl  Selwyn 
will  prove  quite  an  addition  to  your  circle." 

Well,  the  evening  came,  and  so  did  all  the  folks.  But 
what  they  said  and  did  must  be  told  in  another  chapter. 


CHAPTER  XVI 
THE  MINISTER'S  VISIT 

MR.  ST.  JOHN  was  sitting  in  his  lonely  study,  contem 
plating  with  some  apprehension  the  possibilities  of  the 
evening. 

Perhaps  few  women  know  how  much  of  an  ordeal  gen 
eral  society  is  to  many  men.  Women  are  naturally  social 
and  gregarious,  and  have  very  little  experience  of  the  kind 
of  shyness  that  is  the  outer  bark  of  many  manly  natures, 
in  which  they  fortify  all  the  more  sensitive  part  of  their 
being  against  the  rude  shocks  of  the  world. 

As  we  said,  Mr.  St.  John's  life  had  been  that  of  a 
recluse  and  scholar  up  to  the  time  of  his  ordination  as 
a  priest.  He  was,  by  birth  and  education,  a  New  England 
Puritan,  with  all  those  habits  of  reticence  and  self-control 
which  a  New  England  education  enforces.  His  religious 
experiences,  being  those  of  reaction  from  a  sterile  and 
severe  system  of  intellectual  dogmatism,  still  carried  with 
them  a  tinge  of  the  precision  and  narrowness  of  his  early 
life.  His  was  a  nature  like  some  of  the  streams  of  his 
native  mountains,  inclining  to  cut  for  itself  straight,  deep, 
narrow  currents;  and  all  his  religious  reading  and  thinking 
had  run  in  one  channel.  As  to  social  life,  he  first  began 
to  find  it  among  his  inferiors;  among  those  to  whom  he 
came,  not  as  a  brother  man,  but  as  an  authoritative  teacher 
—  a  master,  divinely  appointed,  set  apart  from  the  ordi 
nary  ways  of  men.  In  his  role  of  priest  he  felt  strong. 
In  the  belief  of  his  divine  and  sacred  calling,  he  moved 
among  the  poor  and  ignorant  with  a  conscious  superiority, 


THE  MINISTER'S  VISIT  163 

as  a  being  of  a  higher  sphere.  There  was  something  in 
this  which  was  a  protection  to  his  natural  diffidence;  he 
seemed  among  his  parishioners  to  feel  surrounded  by  a 
certain  sacred  atmosphere  that  shielded  him  from  criticism. 
But  to  mingle  in  society  as  man  with  man,  to  lay  aside  the 
priest  and  be  only  the  gentleman,  appeared  on  near  ap 
proach  a  severe  undertaking.  As  a  priest  at  the  altar  he 
was  a  privileged  being,  protected  by  a  kind  of  divine  aure 
ole,  like  that  around  a  saint.  In  general  society  he  was 
but  a  man,  to  make  his  way  only  as  other  men;  and,  as  a 
man,  St.  John  distrasted  and  undervalued  himself.  As  he 
thought  it  over,  he  inly  assented  to  the  truth  of  what  Eva 
had  so  artfully  stated  —  that  this  ordeal  of  society  was  in 
deed,  for  him,  the  true  test  of  self-sacrifice.  Like  many 
other  men  of  refined  natures,  he  was  nervously  sensitive  to 
personal  influences.  The  social  sphere  of  those  around  him 
affected  him,  through  sympathy,  almost  as  immediately  as 
the  rays  of  the  sun  impress  the  daguerreotype  plate;  but 
he  felt  it  his  duty  to  subject  himself  to  the  ordeal  the 
more  because  he  dreaded  it.  "After  all,"  he  said  to 
himself,  "what  is  my  faith  worth  if  I  cannot  carry  it 
among  men  ?  Do  I  hold  a  lamp  with  so  little  oil  in  it  that 
the  first  wind  will  blow  it  out  1  " 

It  was  with  such  thoughts  as  these  that  he  started  out 
on  his  usual  afternoon  tour  of  visiting  and  ministration  in 
one  of  the  poorest  alleys  of  his  neighborhood.  As  he  was 
making  his  way  along,  a  little  piping  voice  was  heard  at 
his  elbow :  — 

"Mr.  St.  Don;  Mr.  St.  Don." 

He  looked  hastily  down  and  around,  to  meet  the  gaze  of 
a  pair  of  dark'  childish  eyes  looking  forth  from  a  thin, 
sharp  little  face.  Gradually,  he  recognized  in  the  thin, 
barefoot  child,  the  little  girl  whom  he  had  seen  in  Angie's 
class,  leaning  on  her. 

"  What  do  you  want,  my  child  1 " 


164  WE  AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

"Mother  's  took  bad,  and  Poll  's  gone  to  wash  for  her. 
They  told  me  to  watch  till  you  came  round,  and  call  you. 
Mother  wants  to  see  you." 

"Well,  show  me  the  way,"  said  Mr.  St.  John  affably, 
taking  the  thin,  skinny  little  hand. 

The  child  took  him  under  an  alleyway,  into  a  dark, 
back  passage,  up  one  or  two  rickety  staircases,  into  an  attic, 
where  lay  a  woman  on  a  poor  bed  in  the  corner. 

The  room  was  such  a  one  as  his  work  made  only  too 
familiar  to  him  —  close,  dark,  bare  of  comforts,  yet  not 
without  a  certain  lingering  air  of  neatness  and  self-respect. 
The  linen  of  the  bed  was  clean,  and  the  woman  that  lay 
there  had  marks  of  something  refined  and  decent  in  her 
worn  face.  She  was  burning  with  fever;  evidently,  hard 
work  and  trouble  had  driven  her  to  the  breaking  point. 

"  Well,  my  good  woman,  what  can  I  do  for  you  1 "  said 
Mr.  St.  John. 

The  woman  roused  from  a  feverish  sleep  and  looked  at 
him. 

"Oh,  sir,  please  send  her  here.  She  said  she  would 
come  any  time  I  needed  her,  and  I  want  her  now." 

"  Who  is  she  ?     Who  do  you  mean  1 " 

"Please,  sir,  she  means  my  teacher,"  said  the  child, 
with  a  bright,  wise  look  in  her  thin  little  face.  "It's 
Miss  Angie.  Mother  wants  her  to  come  and  talk  to  father; 
father  's  getting  bad  again." 

"He  isn't  a  bad  man,"  put  in  the  woman,  "except  they 
get  him  to  drink;  it 's  the  liquor.  God  knows  there  never 
was  a  kinder  man  than  John  used  to  be. " 

"Where  is  he?  I  will  try  to  see  him,"  said  Mr.  St. 
John. 

"Oh,  don't;  it  won't  do  any  good.  He  hates  minis 
ters;  he  wouldn't  hear  you;  but  Miss  Angie  he  will  hear; 
he  promised  her  he  wouldn't  drink  any  more,  but  Ben 
Jones  and  Jim  Price  have  been  at  him  and  got  him  off  on 
a  spree.  Oh  dear !  " 


THE  MINISTER'S  VISIT  165 

At  this  moment  a  feeble  wail  was  heard  from  the  basket 
cradle  in  the  corner,  and  the  little  girl  jumped  from  the 
bed,  and  in  an  important,  motherly  way,  began  to  soothe 
an  indignant  baby,  who  put  up  his  stomach  and  roared 
loudly  after  the  manner  of  his  kind,  astonished  and  angry 
at  not  finding  the  instant  solace  and  attention  which  his 
place  in  creation  demanded. 

Mr.  St.  John  looked  on  in  a  kind  of  silent  helplessness, 
while  the  little  skinny  creature  lifted  a  child  who  seemed 
almost  as  large  as  herself  and  proceeded  to  soothe  and  as 
suage  his  ill  humor  by  many  inexplicable  arts,  till  she 
finally  quenched  his  cries  in  a  sucking- bottle,  and  peace 
was  restored. 

"  The  only  person  in  the  world  that  can  do  John  any 
good,"  resumed  the  woman,  when  she  could  be  heard,  "is 
Miss  Angie.  John  would  turn  any  man,  especially  any 
minister,  out  of  the  house,  that  said  a  word  about  his 
ways;  but  he  likes  to  have  Miss  Angie  come  here.  She 
has  been  here  Saturday  afternoons  and  read  stories  to  the 
children,  and  taught  them  little  songs,  and  John  always 
listens,  and  she  almost  got  him  to  promise  he  would  give 
up  drinking;  she  has  such  pretty  ways  of  talking  a  man 
can't  get  mad  with  her.  What  I  want  is,  can't  you  tell 
her  John  's  gone,  and  ask  her  to  come  to  me?  He  '11  be 
gone  two  days  or  more,  and  when  he  comes  back  he  '11  be 
sorry  —  he  always  is  then ;  and  then  if  Miss  Angie  will 
talk  to  him;  you  see,  she  'sso  pretty,  and  dresses  so  pretty. 
John  says  she  is  the  brightest,  prettiest  lady  he  ever  saw, 
and  it  sorter  pleases  him  that  she  takes  notice  of  us.  John 
always  puts  his  best  foot  foremost  when  she  is  round. 
John's  used  to  being  with  gentlefolk,"  she  said,  with  a 
sigh;  "he  knows  a  lady  when  he  sees  her." 

"Well,  my  good  woman,"  said  Mr.  St.  John,  "I  shall 
see  Miss  Angie  this  evening,  and  you  may  be  sure  that  I 
shall  tell  her  all  about  this.  Meanwhile,  how  are  you  off? 
Do  you  need  money  now  ?  " 


166  WE  AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

"I  am  pretty  well  off,  sir.  He  took  all  my  last  week's 
money  when  he  went,  but  Poll  has  gone  to  my  wash- 
place  to-day,  and  I  told  her  to  ask  for  pay.  I  hope  they  '11 
send  it." 

"If  they  don't,"  said  Mr.  St.  John,  "here  is  something 
to  keep  things  going,"  and  he  slipped  a  bill  into  the 
woman's  hand. 

"Thank  you,  sir.  When  I  get  up,  if  you  '11  please  give 
me  some  washing,  I  '11  make  it  square.  I  've  been  held 
good  at  getting  up  linen." 

Poor  woman !  She  had  her  little  pride  of  independence 
and  her  little  accomplishment  —  she  could  wash  and  iron ! 
There  she  felt  strong!  Mr.  St.  John  allowed  her  the 
refuge,  and  let  her  consider  the  money  as  an  advance,  not 
a  charity. 

He  turned  away,  and  went  down  the  cracked  and  broken 
stairs  with  the  thought  struggling  in  an  undefined  manner 
in  his  breast,  how  much  there  was  of  pastoral  work  which 
transcended  the  power  of  man,  and  required  the  finer  in 
tervention  of  woman.  With  all,  there  came  a  glow  of  shy 
pleasure  that  there  was  a  subject  of  intercommunication 
opened  between  him  and  Angie,  something  definite  to  talk 
about;  and  to  a  diffident  man  a  definite  subject  is  a  mine 
of  gold. 


CHAPTER   XVII 

OUR    FIRST    THURSDAY 

THE  Hendersons'  first  "Evening"  was  a  social  success. 
The  little  parlors  were  radiant  with  the  blaze  of  the  wood 
fire,  which  gleamed  and  flashed  and  made  faces  at  itself  in 
the  tall,  old-fashioned  brass  andirons,  and  gave  picturesque 
tints  to  the  room. 

Eva's  tea-table  was  spread  in  one  corner,  dainty  with  its 
white  drapery,  and  with  her  pretty  wedding  present  of 
china  upon  it  —  not  china  like  Miss  Dorcas  Yanderhey- 
den's,  of  the  real  old  Chinese  fabric,  but  china  fresh  from 
the  modern  improvements  of  Paris,  and  so  adorned  with 
violets  and  grasses  and  field  flowers  that  it  made  a  Decem 
ber  tea-table  look  like  a  meadow  where  one  could  pick 
bouquets.  Every  separate  teacup  and  saucer  was  an 
artist's  study,  and  a  topic  for  conversation. 

The  arrangement  of  the  rooms  had  been  a  day's  work  of 
careful  consideration  between  Eva  and  Angelique.  There 
was  probably  not  a  perch  or  eyrie  accessible  by  chairs, 
tables,  or  ottomans,  where  these  little  persons  had  not  been 
mounted,  at  divers  times  of  the  day,  trying  the  effect  of 
various  floral  decorations.  The  amount  of  fatigue  that  can 
be  gone  through  in  the  mere  matter  of  preparing  one  little 
set  of  rooms  for  an  evening  reception  is  something  that 
men  know  nothing  about ;  only  the  sisterhood  could  testify 
to  that  frantic  "fanaticism  of  the  beautiful"  which  seizes 
them  when  an  evening  company  is  in  contemplation,  and 
their  house  is  to  put,  so  to  speak,  its  best  foot  forward. 
Many  an  aching  back  and  many  a  drooping  form  could 


168  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

testify  how  the  woman  spends  herself  in  advance,  in  this 
sort  of  altar-dressing  for  home  worship. 

But,  as  a  consequence,  the  little  rooms  were  bowers  of 
beauty.  The  pictures  were  overshadowed  with  nodding 
wreaths  of  pressed  ferns  and  bright  bitter-sweet  berries, 
with  glossy  holly  leaves;  the  statuettes  had  backgrounds 
of  ivy  which  threw  out  their  whiteness.  Harry's  little 
workroom  adjoining  the  parlor  had  become  a  green  alcove, 
where  engravings  and  books  were  spread  out  under  the 
shade  of  a  German  student-lamp.  Everywhere  that  a  vase 
of  flowers  could  make  a  pretty  show  there  was  a  vase  of 
flowers,  though  it  was  December,  and  the  ground  frozen 
like  lead.  For  the  next-door  neighbor,  sweet  Kuth  Baxter, 
had  clipped  and  snipped  every  rosebud,  and  mignonette 
blossom,  and  even  a  splendid  calla  lily,  with  no  end  of 
scarlet  geranium,  and  sent  them  in  to  Eva;  and  Miss 
Dorcas  had  cut  away  about  half  of  an  ancient  and  well- 
kept  rose-geranium,  which  was  the  apple  of  her  eye,  to 
help  out  her  little  neighbor.  So  they  reveled  in  flowers, 
without  cutting  those  which  grew  on  Eva's  own  bushes, 
which  were  all  turned  to  the  light  and  arranged  in  appro 
priate  situations,  blossoming  their  best.  The  little  dining- 
room  also  was  thrown  open,  and  dressed  and  adorned  with 
flowers,  pressed  ferns,  berries,  and  autumn  leaves;  with  a 
distant  perspective  of  light  in  it,  that  there  might  be  a 
place  of  withdrawal  and  quiet  chats  over  books  and  pic 
tures.  In  every  spot  were  disposed  objects  to  start  conver 
sation.  Books  of  autographs,  portfolios  of  sketches,  pho 
tographs  of  distinguished  people,  stereoscopic  views  with 
stereoscope  to  explain  them,  —  all  sorts  of  intervening 
means  and  appliances  by  which  people,  not  otherwise 
acquainted,  should  find  something  to  talk  about  in  com 
mon. 

Eva  was  admirably  seconded  by  her  friends,  from  long 
experience  versed  in  the  art  of  entertaining.  Mrs.  Van 


OUR   FIRST   THURSDAY  169 

Arsdel,  gentle,  affable,  society-loving,  and  with  a  quick 
tact  at  reading  the  feelings  of  others,  was  a  host  in  herself. 
She  at  once  took  possession  of  Miss  Dorcas  Yanderheyden, 
who  came  in  a  very  short  dress  of  rich  India  satin,  and 
very  yellow  and  mussy  but  undeniably  precious  old  lace, 
and  walked  the  rooms  with  a  high-shouldered  independence 
of  manner  most  refreshing  in  this  day  of  long  trains  and 
modern  inconveniences. 

"Sensible  old  girl,"  was  Jim  Fellows's  comment  in 
Alice's  ear  as  Miss  Dorcas  marched  in;  for  which,  of 
course,  he  got  a  reproof,  and  was  ordered  to  remember  and 
keep  himself  under. 

As  to  Mrs.  Betsey,  with  her  white  hair,  and  lace  cap 
with  lilac  ribbons,  and  black  dress,  with  a  flush  of  almost 
girlish  timidity  in  her  pink  cheeks,  she  won  an  instant 
way  to  the  heart  of  Angelique,  who  took  her  arm  and  drew 
her  to  a  cosy  armchair  before  a  table  of  engravings,  and 
began  an  animated  conversation  on  a  book  of  etchings  of 
the  "Old  Houses  of  Xew  York."  These  were  subjects  on 
which  Mrs.  Betsey  could  talk,  and  talk  entertainingly. 
They  carried  her  back  to  the  days  of  her  youth;  bringing 
back  scenes,  persons,  and  places  long  forgotten,  her  know 
ledge  of  which  was  full  of  entertainment.  Angelique  won- 
deringly  saw  her  transfigured  before  her  eyes.  It  seemed 
as  if  an  after-glow  from  the  long  set  sun  of  youthful  beauty 
flashed  back  in  the  old,  worn  face,  as  her  memory  went 
back  to  the  days  of  youth  and  hope.  It  is  a  great  thing 
to  the  old  and  faded  to  feel  themselves  charming  once 
more,  even  for  an  hour;  and  Mrs.  Betsey  looked  into  the 
blooming  face  and  wide-open,  admiring,  hazel  eyes  of 
Angelique,  and  felt  that  she  was  giving  pleasure,  that  this 
charming  young  person  was  really  delighted  to  hear  her 
talk.  It  was  one  of  those  "  cups  of  cold  water  "  that  An 
gelique  was  always  giving  to  neglected  and  out-of-the-way 
people,  without  ever  thinking  that  she  did  so,  or  why  she 


170  WE  AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

did  it,  just  because  she  was  a  sweet,  kind-hearted,  loving 
little  girl. 

When  Mr.  St.  John,  with  an  apprehensive  spirit,  adven 
tured  his  way  into  the  room,  he  felt  safe  and  at  ease  in 
a  moment.  All  was  light,  and  bright,  and  easy  —  nobody 
turned  to  look  at  him,  and  it  seemed  the  easiest  thing  in 
the  world  to  thread  his  way  through  busy  chatting  groups 
to  where  Eva  made  a  place  for  him  by  her  side  at  the  tea- 
table,  passed  him  his  cup  of  tea,  and  introduced  him  to 
Dr.  Campbell,  who  sat  on  her  other  side,  cutting  the  leaves 
of  a  magazine. 

"You  see,"  said  Eva,  laughing,  "I  make  our  Doctor 
useful  on  the  Fourier  principle.  He  is  dying  to  get  at 
those  magazine  articles,  so  I  let  him  cut  the  leaves  and 
take  a  peep  along  here  and  there,  but  I  forbid  reading  — 
in  our  presence  men  have  got  to  give  over  absorbing,  and 
begin  radiating.  Doesn't  St.  Paul  say,  Mr.  St.  John, 
that  if  women  are  to  learn  anything  they  are  to  ask  their 
husbands  at  home  ?  and  does  n't  that  imply  that  their  hus 
bands  at  home  are  to  talk  to  them,  and  not  sit  reading 
newspapers  1 " 

"I  confess  I  never  thought  of  that  inference  from  the 
passage,"  said  Mr.  St.  John,  smiling. 

"But  the  modern  woman,"  said  Dr.  Campbell,  "scorns 
to  ask  her  husband  at  home.  She  holds  that  her  husband 
should  ask  her." 

"Oh,  well,  I  am  .not  the  modern  woman.  I  go  for  the 
old  boundaries  and  the  old  privileges  of  my  sex;  and 
besides,  I  am  a  good  Churchwoman  and  prefer  to  ask  my 
husband.  But  I  insist,  as  a  necessary  consequence,  that 
he  must  hear  me  and  answer  me,  as  he  cannot  do  if  he  is 
reading  newspapers  or  magazines.  Is  n't  that  case  fairly 
argued,  Mr.  St.  John?" 

"I  don't  see  but  it  is." 

"Well,   then,   the  spirit  of  it  applies  to  the  whole  of 


OUR   FIRST   THURSDAY  171 

your  cultured  and  instructive  sex.  Men,  in  the  presence 
of  women,  ought  always  to  be  prepared  to  give  them  infor 
mation,  to  answer  questions,  and  make  themselves  gener 
ally  entertaining  and  useful." 

"You  see,  Mr.  St.  John,"  said  Dr.  Campbell,  "that 
Mrs.  Henderson  has  a  dangerous  facility  for  generalizing. 
Set  her  to  interpreting  and  there  's  no  saying  where  her 
inferences  mightn't  run." 

"I'd  almost  release  Mr.  St.  John  from  my  rules,  to 
allow  him  to  look  over  this  article  of  yours,  though,  Dr. 
Campbell,"  said  Eva.  "Harry  has  read  it  to  me,  and  I 
said,  along  in  different  parts  of  it,  if  ministers  only  knew 
these  things,  how  much  good  they  might  do ! " 

"What  is  the  article?" 

"It  is  simply  something  I  wrote  on  'Abnormal  Influ 
ences  upon  the  Will ; '  it  covers  a  pretty  wide  ground  as 
to  the  question  of  human  responsibility  and  the  recovery 
of  criminals,  and  all  that." 

Mr.  St.  John  remembered  at  this  moment  the  case  of 
the  poor  woman  whom  he  had  visited  that  afternoon,  and 
the  periodical  fatality  which  was  making  her  family  life  a 
shipwreck,  and  he  turned  to  Dr.  Campbell  a  face  so  full 
of  eager  inquiry  and  dawning  thought  that  Eva  felt  that 
the  propitious  moment  was  come  to  leave  them  together, 
and  instantly  she  moved  from  her  seat  between  them,  to 
welcome  a  newcomer  who  was  entering  the  room. 

"I've  got  them  together,"  she  whispered  to  Harry  a 
few  minutes  after,  as  she  saw  that  the  two  were  turned 
towards  each  other,  apparently  intensely  absorbed  in  con 
versation. 

The  two  might  have  formed  a  not  unapt  personification 
of  flesh  and  spirit.  Dr.  Campbell,  a  broad-shouldered, 
deep-breathed,  long-limbed  man,  with  the  proudly  set  head 
and  quivering  nostrils  of  a  high-blooded  horse  —  an  image 
of  superb  physical  vitality:  St.  John,  so  delicately  and 


172  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

sparely  built,  with  his  Greek  forehead  and  clear  blue  eye, 
the  delicate  vibration  of  his  cleanly  cut  lips  and  the  cameo 
purity  of  every  outline  of  his  profile.  Yet  was  he  not 
without  a  certain  air  of  vigor,  the  out-shining  of  spiritual 
forces.  One  could  fancy  Campbell  as  the  Berserker  who 
could  run,  race,  wrestle,  dig,  and  wield  the  forces  of  nature, 
and  St.  John  as  the  poet  and  orator  who  could  rise  to 
higher  regions  and  carry  souls  upward  with  him.  It  takes 
both  kinds  to  make  up  a  world. 

And  now  glided  into  the  company  the  vision  of  two 
women  in  soft,  dove-colored  silks,  with  white  crape  ker 
chiefs  crossed  upon  their  breasts,  and  pressed  crape  caps 
bordering  their  faces  like  a  transparent  aureole.  There 
was  the  neighbor,  Ruth  Baxter,  round,  rosy,  young,  bloom 
ing,  but  dressed  in  the  straitest  garb  of  her  sect.  With 
her  back  turned,  you  might  expect  to  see  an  aged  woman 
stricken  in  years,  so  prim  and  antique  was  the  fashion  of 
her  garments;  but  when  her  face  was  turned,  there  was 
the  rose  of  youth  blooming  amid  the  cool  snows  of  cap  and 
kerchief.  The  smooth  pressed  hair  rippled  and  crinkled 
in  many  a  wave,  as  if  it  would  curl  if  it  dared,  and  the 
round  blue  eyes  danced  with  a  scarce  suppressed  light  of 
cheer  that  might  have  become  mirthfulness  if  set  free; 
but  yet  the  quaint  primness  of  her  attire  set  off  her 
womanly  charms  beyond  all  arts  of  the  toilet. 

Her  companion  was  a  matronly  person,  who  might  be 
fifty  or  thereabouts.  She  had  that  calm,  commanding 
serenity  that  comes  to  woman  only  from  the  habitual  exal 
tation  of  the  spiritual  nature.  Sibyl  Selwyn  was  known 
in  many  lands  as  one  of  the  most  zealous  and  best  accepted 
preachers  of  her  sect.  Her  life  had  been  an  inspiration  of 
pity  and  mercy;  and  she  had  been  in  far  countries  of  the 
earth,  where  there  was  sin  to  be  reproved  or  sorrow  to  be 
consoled,  a  witness  to  testify  and  a  medium  through  whom 
guilt  and  despair  might  learn  something  of  the  Divine  Pity. 


OUR  FIRST  THURSDAY  173 

She  bore  about  with  her  a  power  of  personal  presence 
very  remarkable.  Her  features  were  cast  in  large  and 
noble  mould;  her  clear-cut,  wide-open  gray  eyes  had  a 
penetrating  yet  kind  expression,  that  seemed  adapted  both 
to  search  and  to  cheer,  and  went  far  to  justify  the  opinion 
of  her  sect,  which  attributed  to  Sibyl  in  an  eminent  degree 
the  apostolic  gift  of  the  discerning  of  spirits.  Somehow, 
with  her  presence  there  seemed  to  come  an  atmosphere  of 
peace  and  serenity,  such  as  one  might  fancy  clinging  about/ 
even  the  raiment  of  one  just  stepped  from  a  higher  sphere. 
Yet,  so  gliding  and  so  dove-like  was  the  movement  by 
which  the  two  had  come  in  —  so  perfectly,  cheerfully,  and 
easily  had  they  entered  into  the  sympathies  of  the  occa 
sion,  that  their  entrance  made  no  more  break  or  disturbance 
in  the  social  circle  than  the  stealing  in  of  a  ray  of  light 
through  a  church  window. 

Eva  had  risen  and  gone  to  them  at  once,  hafl  seated 
them  at  the  opposite  side  of  the  little  tea-table  and  poured 
their  tea,  chatting  the  while  and  looking  into  their  serene 
faces  with  a  sincere  cordiality  which  was  reflected  back 
from  them  in  smiles  of  confidence. 

Sibyl  admired  the  pictures,  flowers,  and  grasses  on  her 
teacup  with  the  na'ive  interest  of  a  child;  for  one  often 
remarks,  in  intercourse  with  her  sect,  how  the  aesthetic 
sense,  unfrittered  and  unworn  by  the  petting  of  self-indul 
gence,  is  prompt  to  appreciate  beauty. 

Eva  felt  a  sort  of  awed  pleasure  in  Sibyl's  admiration 
of  her  pretty  things,  as  if  an  angel  guide  were  stooping  to 
play  with  her.  She  felt  in  her  presence  like  one  of  earth's 
unweaned  babies. 

St.  John,  in  one  of  the  pauses  of  the  conversation, 
looked  up  and  saw  this  striking  head  and  face  opposite  to 
him;  a  head  reminding  him  of  some  of  those  saintly  por 
traitures  of  holy  women  in  which  Overbeck  delights.  We 
have  described  him  as  peculiarly  impressible  under  actual 


174  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

social  influences.  It  was  only  the  week  before  that  an 
application  had  been  made  to  him  for  one  Sibyl  Selwyn  to 
hold  a  meeting  in  his  little  chapel,  and  sternly  refused. 
His  idea  of  a  female  preacher  had  been  largely  blended 
with  the  medieval  masculine  contempt  of  woman  and  his 
horror  of  modern  woman  public  teachers  and  lecturers. 
When  this  serene  vision  rose  like  an  exhalation  before 
him  he  did  not  at  first  recall  the  applicant  for  his  chapel, 
but  he  looked  at  her  admiringly  in  a  sort  of  dazed  wonder, 
and  inquired  of  Dr.  Campbell  in  a  low  voice,  "Who  is 
that  ?  » 

"Oh,"  said  Dr.  Campbell,  "don't  you  know?  that's  the 
Quaker  preacher,  Sibyl  Selwyn;  the  woman  who  has  faced 
and  put  down  the  devil  in  places  where  you  couldn't  and 
I  wouldn't  go." 

St.  John  felt  the  blood  flush  in  his  cheeks,  and  a  dim 
idea  took  possession  of  him  that,  if  some  had  entertained 
angels  unawares,  others  unawares  had  rejected  them. 

"Yes,"  said  Dr.  Campbell,  "that  woman  has  been  alone, 
at  midnight,  through  places  where  you  and  I  could  not  go 
without  danger  of  our  heads;  and  she  has  said  words  to 
bar-tenders  and  brothel-keepers  that  would  cost  us  our 
lives.  But  she  walks  out  of  it  all,  as  calm  as  you  see  her 
to-night.  I  know  that  kind  of  woman  —  I  was  brought 
up  among  them.  They  are  an  interesting  physiological 
study;  the  over-cerebration  of  the  spiritual  faculties  among 
them  occasions  some  very  peculiar  facts  and  phenomena. 
I  should  like  to  show  you  a  record  I  have  kept.  It  gives 
them  at  times  an  almost  miraculous  ascendancy  over  others. 
I  fancy,"  he  said  carelessly,  "that  your  legends  of  the 
saints  could  furnish  a  good  many  facts  of  the  same  sort." 

At  this  moment  Eva  came  up  in  her  authoritative  way 
as  mistress  of  ceremonies,  took  Mr.  St.  John  by  the  arm, 
and,  walking  across  with  him,  seated  him  by  Sibyl  Selwyn, 
introduced  them  to  each  other,  and  left  them.  St.  John 


OUR  FIRST   THURSDAY  175 

was  embarrassed,  but  Sibyl  received  him  with  the  perfect 
composure  in  which  she  sat  enthroned. 

"Arthur  St.  John,"  she  said,  "I  am  glad  to  meet  thee. 
I  am  interested  in  thy  work  among  the  poor  of  this  quar 
ter,  and  have  sought  the  Lord  for  thee  in  it." 

"I  am  sure  I  thank  you,"  said  St.  John,  thus  suddenly 
reduced  to  primitive  elements  and  spoken  to  on  the  simple 
plane  of  his  unvarnished  humanity.  It  is  seldom,  after 
we  come  to  mature  years  and  have  gone  out  into  the  world, 
that  any  one  addresses  us  simply  by  our  name  without 
prefix  or  addition  of  ceremony.  It  is  the  province  only  of 
rarest  intimacy  or  nearest  relationship,  and  it  was  long 
since  St.  John  had  been  with  friend  or  relation  who  could 
thus  address  him.  It  took  him  back  to  childhood  and  his 
mother's  knee.  He  was  struggling  with  a  vague  sense  of 
embarrassment,  when  he  remembered  the  curt  and  almost 
rude  manner  in  which  he  had  repelled  her  overture  to 
speak  in  his  chapel,  and  the  contempt  he  had  felt  for  her 
at  the  time.  In  the  presence  of  the  clear,  saintly  face,  it 
seemed  as  if  he  had  been  unconsciously  guilty  of  violating 
a  shrine.  He  longed  to  apologize,  but  he  did  not  know 
how  to  begin. 

"I  feel,"  he  said,  "that  I  am  inexperienced,  and  that 
the  work  is  very  great.  You,"  he  added,  "have  had  longer 
knowledge  of  it  than  I;  perhaps  I  might  learn  something 
of  you. " 

"Thou  wilt  be  led,"  said  Sibyl,  with  the  same  assured 
calmness,  "be  not  afraid." 

"I  am  sorry  —  I  was  sorry,"  said  St.  John,  hesitating, 
"  to  refuse  the  help  you  offered  in  speaking  in  my  chapel, 
but  it  is  contrary  to  the  rules  of  the  Church." 

"Be  not  troubled.  Thee  follows  thy  light.  Thee  can 
do  no  otherways.  Thee  is  but  young  yet,"  she  said,  with 
a  motherly  smile. 

"I  did  not  know  you  personally  then,"  he  said.      "I 


176  WE  AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

should  like  to  talk  more  with  you,  some  time.  I  should 
esteem  it  a  favor  to  have  you  tell  me  some  of  your  expe 
riences.  " 

"Some  time,  if  we  can  sit  together  in  stillness,  I  might 
have  something  given  me  for  thee;  this  is  not  the  time," 
said  Sibyl,  with  quiet  graciousness. 

A  light  laugh  seemed  to  cut  into  the  gravity  of  the  con 
versation.  Both  turned.  Angelique  was  the  centre  of  a 
gay  group  to  whom  she  was  telling  a  droll  story.  Angle 
had  a  gift  for  this  sort  of  thing ;  and  Miss  Dorcas  and  Mrs. 
Betsey,  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel  and  Mr.  Van  Arsdel,  were  ga 
thered  around  her  as,  with  half-pantomime,  half-mimicry, 
she  was  giving  a  street  scene  in  one  of  her  Sunday-school 
visitations.  St.  John  laughed  too;  he  could  not  help  it. 
In  a  moment,  however,  he  seemed  to  recollect  himself,  and 
sighed  and  said :  — 

"It  seems  sometimes  strange  to  me  that  we  can  allow 
ourselves  to  laugh  in  a  world  like  this.  She  is  only  a 
child  or  she  couldn't." 

Sibyl  looked  tenderly  at  Angelique.  "It  is  her  gift," 
she  said.  "She  is  one  of  the  children  of  the  bride-cham 
ber,  who  cannot  mourn  because  the  bridegroom  is  with 
them.  It  would  be  better  for  thee,  Arthur  St.  John,  to 
be  more  a  child.  Where  the  spirit  of  the  Lord  is,  there  is 
liberty." 

St.  John  was  impressed  by  the  calm  decision  of  this 
woman's  manner  and  the  atmosphere  of  peace  and  assur 
ance  around  her.  The  half-mystical  character  of  her  words 
fell  in  with  his  devout  tendencies,  and  that  strange,  inde 
finable  something  that  invests  some  persons  with  influence 
seemed  to  be  with  her,  and  he  murmured  to  himself  the 
words  from  Comus :  — 

"  She  fables  not,  and  I  do  feel  her  words 
Set  off  by  some  superior  power." 

Mr.  St.  John  had  not  for  a  moment  during  that  whole 


OUK  FIRST   THURSDAY  177 

evening  lost  the  consciousness  that  Angelique  was  in  the 
room.  Through  that  double  sense  by  which  two  trains  of 
thought  can  be  going  on  at  the  same  time,  he  was  sensible 
of  her  presence  and  of  what  she  was  doing,  through  all  his 
talks  with  other  people.  He  had  given  one  glance,  when 
he  came  into  the  room,  to  the  place  where  she  was  sitting 
and  entertaining  Mrs.  Betsey,  and  without  any  apparent 
watchfulness  he  was  yet  conscious  of  every  movement  she 
made  from  time  to  time.  He  knew  when  she  dropped  her 
handkerchief,  he  knew  when  she  rose  to  get  down  another 
book,  and  when  she  came  to  the  table  and  poured  for  Mrs. 
Betsey  another  cup  of  tea.  A  subtle  exhilaration  was  in 
the  air.  He  knew  not  why  everything  seemed  so  bright 
and  cheerful;  it  is  as  when  a  violet  or  an  orange  blossom, 
hid  in  a  distant  part  of  a  room,  fills  the  air  with  a  vague 
deliciousness. 

He  dwelt  dreamily  on  Sibyl's  half -mystical  words,  and 
felt  as  if  an  interpreting  angel  had  sanctioned  the  charm 
that  he  found  in  this  bright,  laughing  child.  He  liked  to 
call  her  a  child  to  himself,  —  it  was  a  pleasant  little  nook 
into  which  he  could  retreat  from  a  too  severe  scrutiny  of 
his  feelings  towards  her;  for,  quite  unknown  to  himself, 
St.  John's  heart  was  fast  slipping  off  into  the  good  old  way 
of  Eden. 

But  we  leave  him  for  a  peep  at  other  parties.  It  is 
amusing  to  think  how  many  people  in  one  evening  com 
pany  are  weaving  and  winding  threads  upon  their  own 
private,  separate  spools.  Jim  Fellows,  in  the  dining-room, 
was  saying  to  Alice :  — 

"I'm  going  to  bring  Hal  Stephens  and  Ben  Hubert  to 
you  this  evening;  and  by  George,  Alice,  I  want  you  to 
look  after  them  a  little,  as  you  can.  They  are  raw  news 
paper  boys,  tumbled  into  New  York;  and  nobody  cares  a 
hang  for  them.  Nobody  does  care  a  hang  for  any  stranger 
body,  you  know.  They  haven't  a  decent  place  to  visit, 


178  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

nor  a  woman  to  say  a  word  to  them;  and  yet  I  tell  you 
they  're  good  fellows.  Everybody  curses  newspaper  re 
porters  and  that  sort  of  fellow.  Nobody  has  a  good  word 
for  them.  It 's  small  salary,  and  many  kicks  and  cuffs 
they  get  at  first;  and  yet  that's  the  only  way  to  get  on 
the  papers,  and  make  a  man  of  yourself  at  last ;  and  so,  as 
I  've  got  up  above  the  low  rounds,  I  want  to  help  the  boys 
that  are  down  there,  and  I  '11  tell  you,  Alice,  it  '11  do  'em 
lots  of  good  to  know  you.'7 

And  so  Alice  was  gracious  to  the  newcomers  and  made 
them  welcome,  and  showed  them  pictures,  and  drew  them 
out  to  talk,  arid  made  them  feel  that  they  were  entertain 
ing  her. 

Some  women  have  this  power  of  divining  what  a  man 
can  say,  and  giving  him  courage  to  say  it.  Alice  was  one 
of  these;  people  wondered  when  they  left  her  how  they 
had  been  made  to  talk  so  well.  It  was  the  best  and  truest 
part  of  every  one's  nature  that  she  gave  courage  and  voice 
to.  This  power  of  young  girls  to  ennoble  young  men  is 
unhappily  one  of  which  too  often  they  are  unconscious. 
Too  often  the  woman,  instead  of  being  a  teacher  in  the 
higher  life,  is  only  a  flatterer  of  the  weaknesses  and  lower 
propensities  of  the  men  whose  admiration  she  seeks. 

St.  John  felt  frightened  and  embarrassed  with  his  mes 
sage  to  Angie.  He  had  dwelt  on  it,  all  his  way  to  the 
house,  as  an  auspicious  key  to  a  conversation  which  he 
anticipated  with  pleasure;  yet  the  evening  rolled  by,  and 
though  he  walked  round  and  round,  and  nearer  and  nearer, 
and  conversed  with  this  and  that  one,  he  did  not  come  to 
the  point  of  speaking  to  Angie.  Sometimes  she  was  talk 
ing  to  somebody  else  and  he  waited;  sometimes  she  was 
not  with  anybody  else,  and  then  he  waited  lest  his  joining 
her  should  be  remarked.  He  did  not  stop  to  ask  himself 
why  on  earth  it  should  be  remarked  any  more  than  if  he 
had  spoken  to  Alice  or  Eva,  or  anybody  else,  but  he  felt 
as  if  it  would  be. 


OUR   FIRST   THURSDAY  179 

At  last,  however,  after  making  several  circles  about 
the  table  where  she  sat  with  Mrs.  Betsey,  he  sat  down  by 
them,  and  delivered  his  message  with  a  formal  precision, 
as  if  he  had  been  giving  her  a  summons.  Angie  was  all 
sympathy  and  sweetness,  and  readily  said  she  would  go 
and  see  the  poor  woman  the  very  next  day,  and  then  an 
awkward  pause  ensued.  She  was  a  little  afraid  of  him  as 
a  preternaturally  good  man,  and  began  to  wonder  whether 
she  had  been  laughing  too  loud,  or  otherwise  misbehaving, 
in  the  gayety  of  her  heart,  that  evening. 

So,  after  a  rather  dry  pause,  Mr.  St.  John  uttered  some 
commonplaces  about  the  books  of  engravings  before  them, 
and  then,  suddenly  seeming  to  recollect  something  he  had 
forgotten,  crossed  the  room  to  speak  to  Dr.  Campbell. 

"Dear  me,  child,  and  so  that  is  your  rector,"  said  Mrs. 
Betsey.  "Is  n't  he  a  little  stiff?  " 

"I  believe  he  is  not  much  used  to  society,"  said  Angie; 
"but  he  is  a  very  good  man." 

The  evening  entertainment  had  rather  a  curious  finale. 
A  spirit  of  sociability  had  descended  upon  the  company, 
and  it  was  one  of  those  rare  tides  that  come  sometimes 
where  everybody  is  having  a  good  time,  and  nobody  looks 
at  one's  watch;  and  so,  ten  o'clock  was  long  past,  and 
eleven  had  struck,  and  yet  there  was  no  movement  for 
dissolving  the  session. 

Across  the  way,  old  Dinah  had  watched  the  bright  win 
dows  with  longing  eyes,  until  finally  the  spirit  of  the  occa 
sion  was  too  strong  for  her,  and,  bidding  Jack  lie  down 
and  be  a  good  dog,  she  left  her  own  precincts  and  ran  across 
to  the  kitchen  of  the  festal  scene,  to  pick  up  some  crumbs 
for  her  share. 

Jack  looked  at  her  in  winking  obedience  as  she  closed 
the  kitchen  door,  being  mindful  in  his  own  dog's  head  of 
a  small  slip  of  a  pantry  window  which  had  served  his  rov 
ing  purposes  before  now.  The  moment  Dinah  issued  from 


180  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

the  outer  door  Jack  bounced  from  the  pantry  window  and 
went  padding  at  a  discreet  distance  from  her  heels.  Sit 
ting  down  on  the  front  door-mat  of  the  festive  mansion,  he 
occupied  himself  with  his  own  reflections  till  the  door 
opening  for  a  late  comer  gave  him  an  opportunity  to  slip  in 
quietly. 

Jack  used  his  entrance  ticket  with  discretion,  watched, 
waited,  reconnoitred,  till  finally,  seeing  an  unemployed 
ottoman  next  Mrs.  Betsey,  he  suddenly  appeared  in  the 
midst,  sprang  up  on  the  ottoman  with  easy  grace,  sat  up 
on  his  hind  paws,  and  waved  his  front  ones  affably  to  the 
public. 

The  general  tumult  that  ensued,  the  horror  of  Miss 
Dorcas,  the  scolding  she  tried  to  give  Jack,  the  storm  of 
applause  and  petting  which  greeted  him  in  all  quarters, 
confirming  him,  as  Miss  Dorcas  remarked,  in  his  evil  ways, 
—  all  these  may  better  be  imagined  than  described. 

"  A  quarter  after  eleven,  sister !  " 

"Can  it  be  possible?"  said  Mrs.  Betsey.  "No  wonder 
Jack  came  to  bring  us  home." 

Jack  seconded  the  remark  with  a  very  staccato  bark  and 
a  brisk  movement  towards  the  door,  where,  with  much 
laughing,  many  handshakings,  ardent  protestations  that 
they  had  had  a  delightful  evening,  and  promises  to  come 
again  next  week,  the  company  dispersed. 


CHAPTEE   XVIII 

RAKIXG    UP    THE    FIRE 

THE  cream  of  an  evening  company  is  the  latter  end  of 
it,  after  the  more  ceremonious  have  slipped  away  and  only 
"  we  and  our  folks  "  remain  to  croon  and  rake  up  the  fire. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel,  Angelique,  and  Marie  went 
home  in  the  omnibus.  Alice  stayed  to  spend  the  night 
with  Eva,  and  help  put  up  the  portfolios,  and  put  back  the 
plants,  and  turn  the  bower  back  into  a  work-room,  and  set 
up  the  vases  of  flowers  in  a  cool  place  where  they  could 
keep  till  morning;  because,  you  know  —  you  who  are 
versed  in  these  things  —  that  flowers  in  December  need  to 
be  made  the  most  of,  in  order  to  go  as  far  as  possible. 

Bolton  yet  lingered  in  his  armchair,  in  his  favorite 
corner,  gazing  placidly  at  the  coals  of  the  fire.  Dr.  Camp 
bell  was  solacing  himself,  after  the  unsatisfied  longings  of 
the  evening,  with  seeing  how  his  own  article  looked  in 
print,  and  Jim  Fellows  was  helping  miscellaneously  in  set 
ting  back  flower-pots,  rearranging  books,  and  putting 
chairs  and  tables,  that  had  been  arranged  festively,  back 
into  humdrum  household  places.  Meanwhile,  the  kind  of 
talk  was  going  on  that  usually  follows  a  social  venture  — 
a  sort  of  review  of  the  whole  scene  and  of  all  the  actors. 

"Well,  Doctor,  what  do  you  think  of  our  rector?"  said 
Eva,  tapping  his  magazine  briskly. 

He  lowered  his  magazine  and  squared  himself  round 
gravely. 

"That  fellow  has  n't  enough  of  the  abdominal  to  carry 
his  brain  power,"  he  said.  "Splendid  head  —  a  little  too 


182  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

high  in  the  upper  stories  and  not  quite  heavy  enough  in 
the  basement.  But  if  he  had  a  good  broad,  square  chest, 
and  a  good  digestive  and  blood-making  apparatus,  he  'd 
go.  The  fellow  wants  blood;  he  needs  mutton  and  beef, 
and  plenty  of  it.  That 's  what  he  needs.  What 's  called 
common  sense  is  largely  a  matter  of  good  diet  and  diges 
tion." 

"Oh,  Doctor,  you  materialistic  creature!"  said  Eva. 
"  To  think  of  talking  of  a  clergyman  as  if  he  were  a  horse 
—  to  be  managed  by  changing  his  feed !  " 

"  Certainly,  a  man  must  be  a  good  animal  before  he  can 
be  a  good  man." 

"Well,"  said  Alice,  "all  I  know  is,  that  Mr.  St.  John 
is  perfectly,  disinterestedly,  heart  and  soul  and  body,  de 
voted  to  doing  good  among  men ;  and  if  that  is  not  noble 
and  grand  and  godlike,  I  don't  know  what  is." 

"Well,"  said  Dr.  Campbell,  "I  have  a  profound  respect 
for  all  those  fellows  that  are  trying  to  mop  out  the  Atlantic 
Ocean;  and  he  mops  cheerfully  and  with  good  courage." 

"It's  perfectly  hateful  of  you,  Doctor,  to  talk  so,"  said 
Eva. 

"Well,  you  know  I  don't  go  in  for  interfering  with 
Nature  —  having  noble,  splendid  fellows  waste  and  wear 
themselves  down,  to  keep  miserable  scalawags  and  ill- 
begotten  vermin  from  dying  out  as  they  ought  to.  Nature 
is  doing  her  best  to  kill  off  the  poor  specimens  of  the  race, 
begotten  of  vice  and  drunkenness;  and  what  you  call 
Christian  charity  is  only  interference." 

"But  you  do  it,  Doctor;  you  know  you  do.  Nobody 
does  more  of  that  very  sort  of  thing  than  you  do,  now. 
Don't  you  visit,  and  give  medicine  and  nursing,  and  all 
that,  to  just  such  people?  " 

"I  may  be  a  fool  for  doing  it,  for  all  that,"  said  the 
Doctor.  "I  don't  pretend  to  stick  to  my  principles  any 
better  than  most  people  do.  We  are  all  fools,  more  or 


RAKING   UP   THE   FIRE  183 

less;  but  I  don't  believe  in  Christian  charity;  it's  all 
wrong  —  this  doctrine  that  the  brave,  strong,  good  speci 
mens  of  the  race  are  to  torment  and  tire  and  worry  their 
lives  out  to  save  the  scum  and  dregs.  Here  's  a  man  who, 
by  economy,  honesty,  justice,  temperance,  and  hard  work, 
has  grown  rich,  and  has  houses,  and  lands,  and  gardens, 
and  pictures,  and  what  not,  and  is  having  a  good  time  as 
he  ought  to  have,  and  right  by  him  is  another  who,  by 
dishonesty,  and  idleness,  and  drinking,  has  come  to  rags 
and  poverty  and  sickness.  Shall  the  temperate  and  just 
man  deny  himself  enjoyment,  and  spend  his  time,  and  risk 
his  health,  and  pour  out  his  money,  to  take  care  of  the 
wife  and  children  of  this  scalawag1?  There  Js  the  question 
in  a  nutshell ;  and  /  say,  no !  If  scalawags  find  that  their 
duties  will  be  performed  for  them  when  they  neglect  them, 
that 's  all  they  want.  What  should  St.  John  live  like  a 
hermit  for?  deny  himself  food,  rest,  and  sleep?  spend  a 
fortune  that  might  make  him  and  some  nice  wife  happy 
and  comfortable,  on  drunkards'  wives  and  children?  No 
sense  in  it." 

"That 's  just  where  Christianity  stands  above  and  oppo 
site  to  Nature,"  said  Bolton,  from  his  corner.  "Nature 
says,  destroy.  She  is  blindly  striving  to  destroy  the 
maimed  and  imperfect.  Christianity  says,  save.  Its  God 
is  the  Good  Shepherd,  who  cares  more  for  the  one  lost 
sheep  than  for  the  ninety  and  nine  that  went  not  astray." 

"Yes,"  said  Eva;  "He  who  was  worth  more  than  all  of 
us  put  together  came  down  from  heaven  to  labor  and 
suffer  and  die  for  sinners." 

"That's  supernaturalism, "  said  Dr.  Campbell.  "I 
don't  know  about  that." 

"That's  what  we  learn  at  church,"  said  Eva,  "and 
what  we  believe;  and  it 's  a  pity  you  don't,  Doctor." 

"Oh,  well,"  said  Dr.  Campbell,  lighting  his  cigar,  pre 
vious  to  going  out,  "I  won't  quarrel  with  you.  You 


184  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

might  believe  worse  things.  St.  John  is  a  good  fellow, 
and  if  he  wants  a  doctor  any  time,  I  told  him  to  call  me. 
Good-night." 

"Did  you  ever  see  such  a  creature? "  said  Eva. 

"He  talks  wild,  but  acts  right,"  said  Alice. 

"You  had  him  there  about  visiting  poor  folks,"  said 
Jim.  "  Why,  Campbell  is  a  perfect  fool  about  people  in 
distress  —  would  give  a  fellow  watch  and  chain,  and  boots 
and  shoes,  and  then  scold  anybody  else  that  wanted  to  go 
and  do  likewise." 

"Well,  I  say  such  discussions  are  fatiguing,"  said  Alice. 
"I  don't  like  people  to  talk  all  round  the  points  of  the 
compass  so." 

"Well,  to  change  the  subject,  I  vote  our  evening  a  suc 
cess,"  said  Jim.  "Didn't  we  all  behave  beautifully!" 

"We  certainly  did,"  said  Eva. 

"Isn't  Miss  Dorcas  a  beauty!  "  said  Jim. 

"Come,  now,  Jim,  no  slants,"  said  Alice. 

"I  didn't  mean  any.  Honest  now,  I  like  the  old  girl. 
She  's  sensible.  She  gets  such  clothes  as  she  thinks  right 
and  proper,  and  marches  straight  ahead  in  them,  instead  of 
draggling  and  draggletailing  after  fashion;  and  it 's  a  pity 
there  weren't  more  like  her." 

"Dress  is  a  vile,  tyrannical  Moloch,"  said  Eva.  "We 
are  all  too  much  enslaved  to  it." 

"I  know  we  are,"  said  Alice.  "I  think  it 's  the  ques 
tion  of  our  day,  what  sensible  women  of  small  means  are 
to  do  about  dress ;  it  takes  so  much  time,  so  much  strength, 
so  much  money.  Now,  if  these  organizing,  convention- 
holding  women  would  only  organize  a  dress  reform,  they 
would  do  something  worth  while." 

"The  thing  is,"  said  Eva,  "that  in  spite  of  yourself  you 
have  to  conform  to  fashion  somewhat." 

"Unless  you  do  as  your  Quaker  friends  do,"  said  Bolton. 

"By  George!"  said  Jim  Fellows,  "those  two  were  the 


RAKING   UP   THE   FIRE  185 

best  dressed  women  in  the  room.  That  little  Euth  was 
seductive. " 

"Take  care;  we  shall  be  jealous,"  said  Eva. 

"Well,"  said  Bolton,  rising,  "I  must  walk  up  to  the 
printing-office  and  carry  that  corrected  proof  to  Daniels." 

"I  '11  walk  part  of  the  way  with  you,"  said  Harry.  "I 
want  a  bit  of  fresh  air  before  I  sleep." 


CHAPTER  XIX 

A    LOST    SHEEP 

THE  two  sallied  out  and  walked  arm  in  arm  up  the 
street.  It  was  a  keen,  bright,  starlight  night,  with  every 
thing  on  earth  frozen  stiff  and  hard,  and  the  stars  above 
sparkling  and  glinting  like  white  flames  in  the  intense  clear 
blue.  Just  at  the  turn  of  the  second  street  a  woman  who 
had  been  crouching  in  a  doorway  rose,  and,  coming  up 
towards  the  two,  attempted  to  take  Harry's  arm. 

With  an  instinctive  movement  of  annoyance  and  disgust 
he  shook  her  off  indignantly.  Bolton,  however,  stopped 
and  turned,  and  faced  the  woman.  The  light  of  a  street 
lamp  showed  a  face,  dark,  wild,  despairing,  in  which  the 
history  of  sin  and  punishment  were  too  plainly  written. 
It  was  a  young  face,  and  one  that  might  once  have  been 
beautiful;  but  of  all  that  nothing  remained  but  the 
brightness  of  a  pair  of  wonderfully  expressive  eyes.  Bolton 
advanced  a  step  towards  her  and  laid  his  hand  on  her 
shoulder,  and,  looking  down  on  her,  said :  — 

"  Poor  child,  have  you  no  mother  ?  " 

"Mother!     Oh!" 

The  words  were  almost  shrieked,  and  then  the  woman 
threw  herself  at  the  foot  of  the  lamp-post  and  sobbed  con 
vulsively. 

"Harry,"  said  Bolton,  "I  will  take  her  to  the  St.  Bar 
nabas  ;  they  will  take  her  in  for  the  night. " 

Then,  taking  the  arm  of  the  woman,  he  said  in  a  voice 
of  calm  authority,  "Come  with  me." 

He  raised  her  and  offered  her  his  arm.      "Child,  there 


A  LOST   SHEEP  187 

is  hope  for  you,"  he  said.  "Never  despair.  I  will  take 
you  where  you  will  find  friends." 

A  walk  of  a  short  distance  brought  them  to  the  door  of 
the  Refuge,  where  he  saw  her  received,  and  then  turning 
he  retraced  his  steps  to  Harry. 

"One  more  unfortunate,"  he  said  briefly,  and  then 
immediately  took  up  the  discussion  of  a  point  in  the  proof- 
sheet  just  where  he  had  left  it.  Harry  was  so  excited  by 
the  incident  that  he  could  hardly  keep  up  the  discussion 
which  Bolton  was  conducting. 

"I  wonder,"  he  said,  after  an  interval,  "who  that 
woman  is,  and  what  is  her  history." 

"The  old  story,  likely,"  said  Bolton. 

"What  is  curious,"  said  Harry,  "is  that  Eva  described 
such  a  looking  woman  as  hanging  about  our  house  the 
other  evening.  It  was  the  evening  when  she  was  going 
over  to  the  Vanderheyden  house  to  persuade  the  old  ladies 
to  come  to  us  this  evening.  She  seemed  then  to  have 
been  hanging  about  our  house,  and  Eva  spoke  in  particular 
of  her  eyes  —  just  such  singular,  wild,  dark  eyes  as  this 
woman  has." 

"It  may  be  a  mere  coincidence,"  said  Bolton.  "She 
may  have  had  some  errand  on  your  street.  Whatever  the 
case  be,  she  is  safe  for  the  present.  They  will  do  the  best 
they  can  for  her.  She 's  only  one  more  grain  in  the 
heap ! " 

Shortly  after,  Harry  took  leave  of  Bolton  and  returned 
to  his  own  house.  He  found  all  still,  Eva  waiting  for 
him  by  the  dying  coals  and  smoking  ashes  of  the  fire. 
Alice  had  retired  to  her  apartment. 

"We  've  had  an  adventure,"  he  said. 

"What!  to-night?" 

Harry  here  recounted  the  scene  and  Bolton 's  course,  and 
immediately  Eva  broke  out:  "There,  Harry,  it  must  be 
that  very  woman  that  I  saw  the  night  I  was  going  into  the 


188  WE   AND   OUK  NEIGHBOES 

Vanderhey dens' ;  she  seems  to  be  hanging  round  this  neigh 
borhood.  What  can  she  be?  Tell  me,  Harry,  had  she 
very  brilliant  dark  eyes,  and  a  sort  of  dreadfully  haggard, 
hopeless  look  ? " 

"Exactly.  Then  I  was  provoked  at  her  assurance  in 
laying  her  hand  on  my  arm;  but  when  I  saw  her  face  I 
was  so  struck  by  its  misery  that  I  pitied  her.  You  ought 
to  have  seen  Bolton;  he  seemed  so  calm  and  commanding, 
and  his  face,  as  he  looked  down  on  her,  had  a  wonderful 
expression ;  and  his  voice,  —  you  know  that  heavy,  deep 
tone  of  his,  —  when  he  spoke  of  her  mother  it  perfectly 
overcame  her.  She  seemed  almost  convulsed,  but  he 
assumed  a  kind  of  authority  and  led  her  away  to  the  St. 
Barnabas.  Luckily  he  knew  all  about  that,  for  he  had 
talked  with  St.  John  about  it. " 

"Yes,  indeed,  I  heard  them  talking  about  it  this  very 
evening;  so  it  is  quite  a  providence.  I  do  wonder  who 
she  is  or  what  she  is.  Would  it  do  for  me  to  go  to-morrow 
and  inquire  ?  " 

"I  don't  know,  my  dear,  as  you  could  do  anything. 
They  will  do  all  that  is  possible  there,  and  I  would  not 
advise  you  to  interfere  merely  from  curiosity.  You  can 
do  nothing.'7 

"Strange!"  said  Eva,  still  looking  in  the  fire  while  she 
was  taking  the  hairpins  out  of  her  hair  and  loosening  her 
neck  ribbon,  "strange,  the  difference  in  the  lot  of  women. 
That  girl  has  been  handsome!  People  have  loved  her. 
She  might  have  been  in  a  home,  happy  like  me,  with  a 
good  husband  —  now  there  she  is  in  the  cold  streets.  It 
makes  me  very  unhappy  to  think  such  things  must  be. 
You  know  how  Bolton  spoke  of  God,  the  Good  Shepherd 
—  how  he  cared  more  for  one  lost  one  than  for  all  that  went 
not  astray.  That  is  so  beautiful  —  I  do  hope  she  will  be 
saved. " 

"Let  us  hope  so,  darling." 


A  LOST   SHEEP  189 

"It  seems  selfish  for  me  to  wrap  my  comforts  about  me, 
and  turn  away  my  thoughts,  and  congratulate  myself  on 
my  good  luck  —  don't  it  ?  " 

"But,  darling,  if  you  can't  do  anything,  I  don't  know 
why  you  should  dwell  on  it.  But  I  '11  promise  you  Bolton 
shall  call  and  inquire  of  the  Sisters,  and  if  there  is  any 
thing  we  can  do,  he  will  let  us  know.  But  now  it 's  late, 
and  you  are  tired  and  need  rest." 


CHAPTEE   XX 

EVA  TO  HARRY'S  MOTHER 

CONGRATULATE  us,  dear  mother;  we  have  had  a  suc 
cess  !  Our  first  evening  was  all  one  could  hope !  Every 
body  came  that  we  wanted,  and,  what  is  quite  as  good  in 
such  cases,  everybody  stayed  away  that  we  didn't  want. 
You  know  how  it  is;  when  you  intend  to  produce  real 
acquaintance,  that  shall  ripen  into  intimacy,  it  is  necessary 
that  there  should  be  no  non-conductors  to  break  the  circle. 
There  are  people  that  shed  around  them  coldness  and  con 
straint,  as  if  they  were  made  of  ice,  and  it  is  a  mercy  when 
such  people  don't  come  to  your  parties.  As  it  is,  I  have 
had  the  happiness  to  see  our  godly  rector  on  most  convers 
able  terms  with  our  heretic  doctor,  and  each  thinking 
better  of  the  other.  Oh !  and,  what  was  a  greater  triumph 
yet,  I  managed  to  introduce  a  Quaker  preacheress  to  Mr. 
St.  John,  and  had  the  satisfaction  to  see  that  he  was  com 
pletely  charmed  by  her,  as  well  he  may  be.  The  way  it 
came  about,  you  must  know,  is  this :  — 

Little  Ruth  Baxter,  our  next-door  neighbor,  has  received 
this  Sibyl  Selwyn  at  her  house,  and  is  going  with  her  soon 
on  one  of  her  preaching  expeditions.  I  find 'it  is  a  custom 
of  their  sect  for  the  preachers  to  associate  with  themselves 
one  or  more  lay  sisters,  who  travel  with  them,  and  for  a 
certain  time  devote  themselves  to  works  of  charity  and 
mercy  under  their  superintendence.  They  visit  prisons 
and  penitentiaries;  they  go  to  houses  of  vice  and  misery, 
where  one  would  think  a  woman  would  scarcely  dare  to 
go;  they  reprove  sin,  yet  carry  always  messages  of  hope 


EVA  TO  HARRY'S  MOTHER       191 

and  mercy.  Little  Ruth  is  now  preparing  to  go  with  Sibyl 
on  such  a  mission,  and  I  am  much  interested  in  the  stories 
she  tells  me  of  the  strange  unworldly  experiences  of  this 
woman.  It  is  true  that  these  missions  are  temporary ;  they 
seem  to  be  only  like  what  we  could  suppose  the  visits  of 
angels  might  be  —  something  to  arouse  and  to  stimulate, 
but  not  to  exert  a  continuous  influence.  What  feeling 
they  excite,  what  good  purposes  and  resolutions  spring  up 
under  their  influence,  they  refer  to  the  organized  charities 
of  Christian  churches  of  whatever  name.  If  Sibyl's  peni 
tents  are  Romanists,  she  carries  them  to  the  Romish  Sis 
ters;  and  so  with  Methodist,  Baptist,  or  Ritualist,  wher 
ever  they  can  find  shelter  and  care.  She  seems  to  regard 
her  mission  as  like  that  of  the  brave  Sisters  of  Charity 
who  go  upon  the  field  of  battle  amid  belching  cannon  and 
bursting  shells,  to  bring  away  the  wounded.  She  leaves 
them  in  this  or  that  hospital,  and  is  off  again  for  more. 

This  she  has  been  doing  many  years,  as  the  spirit  within 
leads  her,  both  in  England  and  in  this  country.  I  wish 
you  could  see  her  —  I  know  how  you  would  love  her.  As 
for  me,  I  look  up  to  her  with  a  kind  of  awe ;  yet  she  has 
such  a  pretty,  simple-hearted  innocence  about  her.  I  felt 
a  little  afraid  of  her  at  first,  and  thought  all  my  pins  and 
rings  and  little  bows  and  fixtures  would  seem  so  many  sins 
in  her  sight;  but  I  found  she  could  admire  a  bracelet  or 
a  gem  as  much  as  I  did,  and  seemed  to  enjoy  all  my  pretty 
tilings  for  me.  She  says  so  prettily,  "If  thee  acts  up  to 
thy  light,  Eva,  thee  can  do  no  more."  I  only  wish  that 
I  were  as  sure  as  she  is  that  I  do.  It  is  quite  sweet  of 
her,  and  puts  me  at  ease  in  her  presence.  They  are  going 
to  be  gone  all  this  week  on  some  mission.  I  don't  know 
yet  exactly  where,  but  I  can't  help  feeling  as  if  I  wished 
some  angel  woman  like  Sibyl  would  take  me  off  with  her, 
and  let  me  do  a  little  something  in  this  great  and  never 
finished  work  of  helping  and  healing.  I  have  always  had 


192  WE  AND   OUE  NEIGHBORS 

a  longing  to  do  a  little  at  it,  and  perhaps,  with  some  one 
to  inspire  and  guide  me,  even  I  might  do  some  good. 

This  reminds  me  of  a  strange  incident.  The  other  night, 
as  I  was  crossing  the  street,  I  saw  a  weird-looking  young 
woman,  very  haggard  and  miserable,  who  seemed  to  be  in 
a  kind  of  uncertain  way  hanging  about  our  house.  There 
was  something  about  her  face  and  eyes  that  affected  me 
quite  painfully,  but  I  thought  nothing  of  it  at  the  time. 
But,  the  evening  after  our  reception,  as  Harry  and  Bolton 
were  walking  about  a  square  beyond  our  house,  this  crea 
ture  came  suddenly  upon  them  and  took  Harry's  arm.  He 
threw  her  off  with  a  sudden  impulse,  and  then  Bolton,  like 
a  good  man,  as  he  always  is,  and  with  that  sort  of  quiet 
self-possession  he  always  has,  spoke  to  her  and  asked  where 
her  mother  was.  That  word  was  enough,  and  the  poor 
thing  began  sobbing  and  crying,  and  then  he  took  her  and 
led  her  away  to  the  St.  Barnabas,  a  refuge  for  homeless 
people  which  is  kept  by  some  of  our  Church  Sisters,  and 
there  he  left  her;  and  Harry  says  he  will  tell  Mr.  St. 
John  about  it,  so  that  he  may  find  out  what  can  be  done 
for  her,  if  anything. 

When  I  think  of  meeting  any  such  case  personally,  I 
feel  how  utterly  weak  and  inexperienced  I  am,  and  how 
utterly  unfit  to  guide  ,or  help,  though  I  wish  with  my 
whole  heart  I  could  do  something  to  help  all  poor  desolate 
people.  I  feel  a  sort  of  self-reproach  for  being  so  very 
happy  as  I  am  while  any  are  miserable.  To  take  another 
subject,  — I  have  been  lately  more  and  more  intimate  with 
Bolton.  You  know  I  sent  you  Caroline's  letter  about  him. 
Well,  really  it  seemed  to  me  such  a  pity  that  two  who  are 
entirely  devoted  to  each  other  should  be  living  without  the 
least  comfort  of  intercommunion,  that  I  could  not  help  just 
trying  the  least  little  bit  to  bring  them  together.  Harry 
rather  warned  me  not  to  do  it.  These  men  are  so  pru 
dent  ;  their  counsels  seem  rather  cold  to  our  hearts  —  is  it 


EVA  TO  HARRY'S  MOTHER        193 

not  so,  mother?  Harry  advised  me  not  to  name  the  sub 
ject  to  Bolton,  and  said  he  would  not  dare  do  it  for  the 
world.  Well,  that's  just  because  he's  a  man;  he  does 
not  know  how  differently  men  receive  the  approaches  of 
a  woman.  In  fact,  I  soon  found  that  there  was  no  sub 
ject  on  which  Bolton  was  so  all  alive  and  eager  to  hear. 
When  I  had  once  mentioned  Caroline,  he  kept  recurring 
to  the  subject,  evidently  longing  to  hear  more  from  her; 
and  so,  one  way  and  another,  in  firelight  talks  and  moon 
light  walks,  and  times  and  places  when  words  slip  out 
before  one  thinks,  the  whole  of  what  is  to  be  known  of 
Caroline's  feelings  went  into  his  mind,  and  all  that  might 
be  known  of  his  to  her  passed  into  mine.  I,  in  short,  be 
came  a  medium.  And  do  you  think  I  was  going  to  let 
her  fret  her  heart  out  in  ignorance  of  anything  I  could  tell 
her?  Not  if  I  know  myself;  in  fact,  I  have  been  writing 
volumes  to  Caroline,  for  I  am  determined  that  no  people 
made  for  each  other  shall  go  wandering  up  and  down  this 
labyrinth  of  life,  missing  their  way  at  every  turn,  for  want 
of  what  could  be  told  them  by  some  friendly  good  fairy 
who  has  the  clue. 

Say  now,  mother,  am  I  imprudent?  If  I  am,  I  can't 
help  it;  the  thing  is  done.  Bolton  has  broken  the  silence 
and  written  to  Caroline;  and  once  letter- writing  is  begun, 
you  see,  the  rest  follows.  Does  it  not  ? 

Now  the  thing  is  done,  Harry  is  rather  glad  of  it,  as  he 
usually  is  with  the  results  of  my  conduct  when  I  go  against 
his  advice  and  the  thing  turns  out  all  right;  and,  what's 
of  Harry  better  than  that,  when  I  get  into  a  scrape  by  go 
ing  against  his  counsels,  he  never  says,  "I  told  you  so," 
but  helps  me  out,  and  comforts  me  in  the  loveliest  manner. 
Mother,  dear,  he  does  you  credit,  for  you  had  the  making 
of  him!  He  never  would  have  been  the  husband  he  is  if 
you  had  not  been  the  mother  you  are. 

You  say  you  are  interested  in  my  old  ladies  across  the 
way. 


194  WE  AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

Yes,  I  really  flatter  myself  that  our  coming  into  this 
neighborhood  is  quite  a  godsend  to  them.  I  don't  know 
any  that  seemed  to  enjoy  the  evening  more  than  they  two. 
It  was  so  long  since  they  had  been  in  any  society,  and  their 
society  power  had  grown  cramped,  stiff  by  disuse ;  but  the 
light  and  brightness  of  our  fireside,  and  the  general  friendly 
cheerfulness,  seemed  to  wake  them  up.  My  sisters  are 
admirable  assistants.  They  are  society  girls  in  the  best 
sense,  and  my  dear  little  mamma  is  never  so  much  herself 
as  when  she  is  devoting  herself  to  entertaining  others. 
Miss  Dorcas  told  me,  this  morning,  that  she  was  thankful 
on  her  sister's  account  to  have  this  prospect  of  a  weekly 
diversion  opened  to  her;  for  that  she  had  so  many  sorrows 
and  suffered  so  much,  it  was  all  she  could  do  at  times  to 
keep  her  from  sinking  in  utter  despondency.  What  her 
troubles  could  have  been  Miss  Dorcas  did  not  say ;  but  I 
know  that  her  marriage  was  unhappy,  and  that  she  has  lost 
all  her  children.  But,  at  any  rate,  this  acknowledgment 
from  her  that  we  have  been  a  comfort  and  help  to  them 
gratifies  me.  It  shows  me  that  we  were  right  in  thinking 
that  we  need  not  run  beyond  our  own  neighborhood  to 
find  society  full  of  interest  and  do  our  little  part  in  the 
kindly  work  of  humanity.  Oh,  don't  let  me  forget  to  tell 
you  that  that  lovely,  ridiculous  Jack  of  theirs,  that  they 
make  such  a  pet  of,  insisted  on  coming  to  the  party  to  look 
after  them;  waylaid  the  door,  and  got  in,  and  presented 
himself  in  a  striking  attitude  on  an  ottoman  in  the  midst 
of  the  company,  to  Miss  Dorcas's  profound  horror  and  our 
great  amusement.  Jack  has  now  become  the  "  dog  of  the 
regiment,"  and  we  think  of  issuing  a  season  ticket  in  his 
behalf;  for  everybody  pets  him;  he  helps  to  make  fun 
and  conversation. 

After  all,  my  dear  mother,  I  must  say  a  grateful  word 
in  praise  of  my  Mary.  I  pass  for  a  first-rate  housekeeper, 
and  receive  constant  compliments  for  my  lovely  house,  its 


EVA  TO  HARRY'S  MOTHER        195 

charming  arrangements,  the  ease  with  which  I  receive  and 
entertain  company,  the  smoothness  and  completeness  with 
which  everything  goes  on;  and  all  the  while,  in  my  own 
conscience,  I  feel  that  almost  all  the  credit  is  due  to  Mary. 
The  taste  in  combination  and  arrangement  is  mine,  to  be 
sure  —  and  I  flatter  myself  on  having  some  nice  domestic 
theories;  but  after  all,  Mary's  knowledge,  and  Mary's 
strength,  and  Mary's  neatness  and  order,  are  the  foundation 
on  which  all  the  structure  is  built.  Of  what  use  would 
be  taste  and  beauty  and  refinement  if  I  had  to  do  my  own 
washing,  or  cook  my  own  meals,  or  submit  to  the  inroads 
of  a  tribe  of  untaught  barbarians,  such  as  come  from  the 
intelligence  offices?  How  soon  would  they  break  my 
pretty  teacups,  and  overwhelm  my  lovely  bijouterie  with  a 
second  Goth  and  Vandal  irruption!  So,  with  you,  dear 
mother,  you  see  I  do  justice  to  Mary,  strong  and  kind, 
whom  nobody  thinks  of  and  nobody  praises,  and  yet  who 
enables  me  to  do  all  that  I  do.  I  believe  she  truly  loves 
me  with  all  the  warmth  of  an  Irish  heart,  and  I  love  her 
in  return;  and  I  give  her  this  credit  with  you,  to  absolve 
my  own  conscience  for  taking  so  much  more  than  is  due 
to  myself  in  the  world.  But  what  a  long  letter  I  am  writ 
ing!  Writing  to  you  is  talking,  and  you  know  what  a 
chatterbox  I  am;  but  you  won't  be  tired  of  hearing  all  this 
from  us.  Your  loving  EVA. 


CHAPTER   XXI 

BOLTON    AND    ST.    JOHN 

ST.  JOHN  was  seated  in  his  study,  with  a  book  of  medi 
tations  before  him  on  which  he  was  endeavoring  to  fix  his 
mind.  In  the  hot,  dusty,  vulgar  atmosphere  of  modern 
life,  it  was  his  daily  effort  to  bring  around  himself  the 
shady  coolness,  the  calm  conventual  stillness,  that  breathes 
through  such  writers  as  St.  Francis  de  Sales  and  Thomas  h 
Kempis,  men  with  a  genius  for  devotion,  who  have  left  to 
mankind  records  of  the  mile-stones  and  road-marks  by 
which  they  traveled  towards  the  highest  things.  Nor 
should  the  most  stringent  Protestant  fail  to  honor  that  rich 
and  grand  treasury  of  the  experience  of  devout  spirits  of 
which  the  Romish  Church  has  been  the  custodian.  The 
hymns  and  prayers  and  pious  meditations  which  come  to 
us  through  this  channel  are  particularly  worthy  of  a  cher 
ishing  remembrance  in  this  dusty,  materialistic  age.  To 
St.  John  they  had  a  double  charm,  by  reason  of  their 
contrast  with  the  sterility  of  the  religious  forms  of  his 
early  life.  While  enough  of  the  Puritan  and  Protestant 
remained  in  him  to  prevent  his  falling  at  once  into  the, full 
embrace  of  Romanism,  he  still  regarded  the  old  fabric  with 
a  softened,  poetic  tenderness;  he  "  took  pleasure  in  her 
stones  and  favored  the  dust  thereof." 

Nor  is  it  to  be  denied  that  in  the  history  of  the  Rom 
ish  Church  are  records  of  heroism  and  self-devotion  which 
might  justly  inspire  with  ardor  the  son  of  a  line  of  Puri 
tans.  Who  can  go  beyond  St.  Francis  Xavier  in  the  signs 
of  an  apostle  1  Who  labored  with  more  utter  self -surrender 


BOLTON   AND   ST.   JOHN  197 

than  Father  Claver  for  the  poor  negro  slaves  of  South 
America?  And  how  magnificent  are  those  standing  Orders 
of  Charity,  composed  of  men  and  women  of  that  commun 
ion,  that  have  formed  from  age  to  age  a  life-guard  of  hu 
manity,  devoted  to  healing  the  sick,  sheltering  and  educat 
ing  the  orphans,  comforting  the  dying!  A  course  of  eager 
reading  in  this  direction  might  make  it  quite  credible 
even  that  a  Puritan  on  the  rebound  should  wish  to  come  as 
near  such  a  church  as  is  possible  without  sacrifice  of  con 
science  and  reason. 

In  the  modern  Anglican  wing  of  the  English  Church  St. 
John  thought  he  had  found  the  blessed  medium.  There 
he  believed  were  the  signs  of  the  devotion,  the  heroism 
and  self-sacrifice  of  the  primitive  Catholic  Church,  without 
the  hindrances  and  incrustations  of  superstition.  That 
little  record,  "Ten  Years  in  St.  George's  Mission,"  was 
to  him  the  seal  of  their  calling.  There  he  read  of  men  of 
property  devoting  their  entire  wealth,  their  whole  time  and 
strength,  to  the  work  of  regenerating  the  neglected  poor 
of  London.  He  read  of  a  district  that  at  first  could  be 
entered  only  under  the  protection  of  the  police,  where 
these  moral  heroes  began  their  work  of  love  amid  the 
hootkigs  and  howlings  of  the  mob  and  threats  of  personal 
violence,  —  the  scoff  and  scorn  of  those  they  came  to  save ; 
and  how  by  the  might  of  Christian  love  and  patience  these 
savage  hearts  were  subdued,  these  blasphemies  turned  to 
prayers;  and  how  in  this  dark  district  arose  churches, 
schools,  homes  for  the  destitute,  reformatories  for  the  lost. 
No  wonder  St.  John,  reading  of  such  a  history,  felt,  "  This 
is  the  church  for  me."  Perhaps  a  wider  observation  might 
have  shown  him  that  such  labors  and  successes  are  not 
peculiar  to  the  ritualist;  that  to  wear  the  cross  outwardly 
is  not  essential  to  bearing  the  cross  inwardly;  and  that 
without  signs  and  the  symbolism  of  devout  forms,  the 
spirit  of  love,  patience,  and  self-denial  can  and  does  accom 
plish  the  same  results. 


198  WE  AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

St.  John  had  not  often  met  Bolton  before  that  evening 
at  the  Hendersons'.  There,  for  the  first  time,  he  had  had 
a  quiet,  uninterrupted  conversation  with  him;  and,  from 
the  first,  there  had  been  felt  between  them  that  constitu 
tional  sympathy  that  often  unites  widely  varying  natures, 
like  the  accord  of  two  different  strings  of  an  instrument. 

Bolton  was  less  of  an  idealist  than  St.  John,  with  a 
wider  practical  experience  and  a  heavier  mental  calibre. 
He  was  in  no  danger  of  sentimentalism,  and  yet  there  was 
about  him  a  deep  and  powerful  undertone  of  feeling  that 
inclined  him  in  the  same  direction  with  Mr.  St.  John. 
There  are  men,  and  very  strong  men,  whose  natures  gravi 
tate  towards  Romanism  with  a  force  only  partially  modified 
by  intellectual  convictions:  they  would  be  glad  to  believe 
it  if  they  could. 

Bolton  was  an  instance  of  a  man  of  high  moral  and 
intellectual  organization,  of  sensitive  conscience  and  intense 
sensibility,  who,  with  the  highest  ideal  of  manhood  and  of 
the  purposes  to  which  life  should  be  devoted,  had  come 
to  look  upon  himself  as  an  utter  failure.  An  infirmity  of 
the  brain  and  the  flesh  had  crept  upon  him  in  the  un 
guarded  period  of  youth,  had  struck  its  poison  through  his 
system,  and  weakened  the  power  of  the  will,  till  aM  the 
earlier  part  of  his  life  had  been  a  series  of  the  most  morti 
fying  failures.  He  had  fallen  from  situation  after  situa 
tion,  where  he  had  done  work  for  a  season:  and,  each 
time,  the  agony  of  his  self-reproach  and  despair  had  been 
doubled  by  the  reproaches  and  expostulations  of  many  of 
his  own  family  friends,  who  poured  upon  bare  nerves  the 
nitric  acid  of  reproach.  He  had  seen  the  hair  of  his  mother 
slowly  and  surely  whitening  in  the  sickening  anxieties  and 
disappointments  which  he  had  brought.  Loving  her  with 
almost  a  lover's  fondness,  desiring  above  all  things  to  be 
her  staff  and  stay,  he  had  felt  himself  to  be  to  her  only  an 
anxiety  and  a  disappointment. 


BOLTON   AND   ST.   JOHN  199 

When,  at  last,  he  had  gained  a  foothold  and  a  place  in 
the  press,  he  was  still  haunted  with  the  fear  of  recurring 
failure.  He  who  has  two  or  three  times  felt  his  sanity 
give  way,  and  himself  become  incapable  of  rational  control, 
never  thereafter  holds  himself  secure.  And  so  it  was  with 
this  overpowering  impulse  to  which  Bolton  had  been  sub 
jected;  he  did  not  know  at  what  time  it  might  sweep  over 
him  again. 

Of  late,  his  intimacy  had  been  sought  by  Eva,  and  he 
had  yielded  to  the  charm  of  her  society.  It  was  impossible 
for  a  nature  at  once  so  sympathetic  and  so  transparent  as 
hers  to  mingle  intimately  with  another  without  learning 
and  betraying  much.  The  woman's  tact  at  once  divined 
that  his  love  for  Caroline  had  only  grown  with  time,  and 
the  scarce  suppressed  eagerness  with  which  he  listened  to 
any  tidings  from  her  led  on  from  step  to  step  in  mutual 
confidence,  till  there  was  nothing  more  to  be  told,  and 
Bolton  felt  that  the  only  woman  he  had  ever  loved,  loved 
him  in  return  with  a  tenacity  and  intensity  which  would 
be  controlling  forces  in  her  life. 

It  was  with  a  bitter  pleasure  nearly  akin  to  pain  that 
this  conviction  entered  his  soul.  To  a  delicate  moral  or 
ganization,  the  increase  of  responsibility,  with  distrust  of 
ability  to  meet  it,  is  a  species  of  torture.  He  feared  him 
self  destined  once  more  to  wreck  the  life  and  ruin  the 
hopes  of  one  dearer  than  his  own  soul,  wrho  was  devoting 
herself  to  him  with  a  woman's  uncalculating  fidelity. 

This  agony  of  self-distrust,  this  conscious  weakness  in 
his  most  earnest  resolutions  and  most  fervent  struggles,  led 
Bolton  to  wish  with  all  his  heart  that  the  beautiful  illusion 
of  an  all-powerful  church  in  which  still  resided  the  visible 
presence  of  Almighty  God  might  be  a  reality.  His  whole 
soul  sometimes  cried  out  for  such  a  visible  Helper  —  for  a 
church  with  power  to  bind  and  loose,  with  sacraments 
which  should  supplement  human  weakness  by  supernatural 


200  WE   AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

grace,  with  a  priesthood  competent  to  forgive  sin  and  to 
guide  the  penitent.  It  was  simply  and  only  because  his 
clear,  well-trained  intelligence  could  see  no  evidence  of 
what  he  longed  to  believe  that  the  absolute  faith  was 
wanting. 

He  was  not  the  only  one  in  this  perplexed  and  hopeless 
struggle  with  life  and  self  and  the  world  who  has  cried 
out  for  a  visible  temple,  such  as  had  the  ancient  Jew;  for 
a  visible  High  Priest,  who  s*hould  consult  the  oracle  for 
him  and  bring  him  back  some  sure  message  from  a  living 
God. 

When  he  looked  back  on  the  seasons  of  his  failures,  he 
remembered  that  it  was  with  vows  and  tears  and  prayers 
of  agony  in  his  mouth  that  he  had  been  swept  away  by  the 
burning  temptation;  that  he  had  been  wrenched,  cold  and 
despairing,  from  the  very  horns  of  the  altar.  Sometimes 
he  looked  with  envy  at  those  refuges  which  the  Eomish 
Church  provides  for  those  who  are  too  weak  to  fight  the 
battle  of  life  alone,  and  thought,  with  a  sense  of  rest  and 
relief,  of  entering  some  of  those  religious  retreats  where  a 
man  surrenders  his  whole  being  to  the  direction  of  another, 
and  ends  the  strife  by  laying  down  personal  free  agency  at 
the  feet  of  absolute  authority.  Nothing  but  an  unconvinced 
intellect  —  an  inability  to  believe  —  stood  in  the  way  of 
this  entire  self -surrender.  This  morning,  he  had  sought 
Mr.  St.  John's  study,  to  direct  his  attention  to  the  case 
of  the  young  woman  whom  he  had  rescued  from  the 
street  the  night  before. 

Bolton's  own  personal  experience  of  human  weakness 
and  the  tyranny  of  passion  had  made  him  intensely  pitiful. 
He  looked  on  the  vicious  and  the  abandoned  as  a  man  ship 
wrecked  and  swimming  for  his  life  looks  on  the  drowning 
who  are  floating  in  the  waves  around  him;  and  where  a 
hand  was  wanting,  he  was  prompt  to  stretch  it  out. 

There  was  something  in  that  young,  haggard  face,  those 


BOLTON  AND   ST.   JOHN  201 

sad,  appealing  eyes,  that  had  interested  him  more  power 
fully  than  usual,  and  he  related  the  case  with  much  feeling 
to  Mr.  St.  John,  who  readily  promised  to  call  and  ascer 
tain  if  possible  some  further  particulars  about  her. 

"You  did  the  very  best  possible  thing  for  her,"  said  he, 
"when  you  put  her  into  the  care  of  the  Church.  The 
Church  alone  is  competent  to  deal  with  such  cases." 

Bolton  ruminated  within  himself  on  the  wild,  diseased 
impulses,  the  morbid  cravings  and  disorders,  the  complete 
wreck  of  body  and  soul  that  come  of  such  a  life  as  the 
woman  had  led,  and  then  admired  the  serene  repose  with 
which  St.  John  pronounced  that  indefinite  power,  the 
CHURCH,  as  competent  to  cast  out  the  seven  devils  of  the 
Magdalen. 

"I  shall  be  very  glad  to  hear  good  news  of  her,"  he 
said;  "and  if  the  Church  is  strong  enough  to  save  such  as 
she  I  shall  be  glad  to  know  that  too." 

"  You  speak  in  a  skeptical  tone, "  said  St.  John. 

"Pardon  me;  I  know  something  of  the  difficulties,  phy 
sical  and  moral,  which  lie  in  the  way,"  said  Bolton. 

"To  them  that  believe,  nothing  shall  be  impossible," 
said  St.  John,  his  face  kindling  with  ardor. 

"And  by  the  Church  do  you  mean  all  persons  who  have 
the  spirit  of  Jesus  Christ,  or  simply  that  portion  of  them 
who  worship  in  the  form  that  you  do  ?  " 

"Come,  now,"  said  St.  John,  "the  very  form  of  your 
question  invites  to  a  long  historic  argument ;  and  I  am  sure 
you  did  not  mean  to  draw  that  on  your  head." 

"Some  other  time,  though,"  said  Bolton,  "if  you  will 
undertake  to  convince  me  of  the  existence  in  this  world  of 
such  a  power  as  you  believe  in,  you  will  find  me  certainly 
not  unwilling  to  believe.  But,  this  morning,  I  have  but 
a  brief  time  to  spend.  Farewell,  for  the  present." 

And  with  a  hearty  handshake  the  two  parted. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

TWO    VIEWS    OF    LIFE 

[Bolton  to  Caroline.] 

I  HAD  not  thought  to  obtrude  myself  needlessly  on  you 
ever  again.  Oppressed  with  the  remembrance  that  I  have 
been  a  blight  on  a  life  that  might  otherwise  have  been 
happy,  I  thought  my  only  expiation  was  silence.  But  it 
had  not  then  occurred  to  me  that  possibly  you  could  feel 
and  be  pained  by  that  silence.  But  of  late  I  have  been 
very  intimate  with  Mrs.  Henderson,  whose  mind  is  like 
those  crystalline  lakes  we  read  of  —  a  pebble  upon  the  bot 
tom  is  evident.  She  loves  you  so  warmly  and  feels  for 
you  so  sympathetically  that  almost  unconsciously,  when 
you  pour  your  feelings  into  her  heart,  they  are  revealed  to 
me  through  the  transparent  medium  of  her  nature.  I  con 
fess  that  I  am  still  so  selfish  as  to  feel  a  pleasure  in  the 
thought  that  you  cannot  forget  me.  I  cannot  forget  you. 
I  never  have  forgotten  you,  I  believe,  for  a  working  con 
scious  hour  since  that  time  when  your  father  shut  the 
door  of  his  house  between  you  and  me.  I  have  demon 
strated  in  my  own  experience  that  there  may  be  a  double 
consciousness  all  the  while  going  on,  in  which  the  presence 
of  one  person  should  seem  to  pervade  every  scene  of  life. 
You  have  been  with  me  even  in  those  mad  fatal  seasons 
when  I  have  been  swept  from  reason  and  conscience  and 
hope  —  it  has  added  bitterness  to  my  humiliation  in  my 
weak  hours;  but  it  has  been  motive  and  courage  to  rise  up 
again  and  again  and  renew  the  fight  —  the  fight  that  must 
last  as  long  as  life  lasts;  for,  Caroline,  this  is  so.  In  some 


TWO   VIEWS   OF  LIFE  203 

constitutions,  with  some  hereditary  predispositions,  the 
indiscretions  and  ignorances  of  youth  leave  a  fatal,  irreme 
diable  injury.  Though  the  sin  be  in  the  first  place  one 
of  inexperience  and  ignorance,  it  is  one  that  nature  never 
forgives.  The  evil  once  done  can  never  be  undone;  no 
prayers,  no  entreaties,  no  resolutions,  can  change  the  con 
sequences  of  violated  law.  The  brain  and  nerve  forces, 
once  vitiated  by  poisonous  stimulants,  become  thereafter 
subtle  tempters  and  traitors,  forever  lying  in  wait  to  de 
ceive  and  urging  to  ruin;  and  he  who  is  saved,  is  saved  so 
as  by  fire.  Since  it  is  your  unhappy  fate  to  care  so  much 
for  me,  I  owe  to  you  the  utmost  frankness.  I  must  tell 
you  plainly  that  I  am  an  unsafe  man.  I  am  like  a  ship 
with  powder  on  board  and  a  smouldering  fire  in  the  hold. 
I  must  warn  my  friends  off,  lest  at  any  moment  I  carry  ruin 
to  them,  and  they  be  drawn  down  in  my  vortex.  We  can 
be  friends,  dear  friends;  but  let  me  beg  you,  think  as 
little  of  me  as  you  can.  Be  a  friend  in  a  certain  degree, 
after  the  manner  of  the  world,  rationally,  and  with  a  wise 
regard  to  your  own  best  interests  —  you  who  are  worth 
five  hundred  times  what  I  am  —  you  who  have  beauty, 
talent,  energy  —  who  have  a  career  opening  before  you, 
and  a  most  noble  and  true  friend  in  Miss  Ida;  do  not  let 
your  sympathies  for  a  very  worthless  individual  lead  you 
to  defraud  yourself  of  all  that  you  should  gain  in  the 
opportunities  now  open  to  you.  Command  my  services 
for  you  in  the  literary  line  whenever  they  may  be  of  the 
slightest  use.  Remember  that  nothing  in  the  world  makes 
me  so  happy  as  an  opportunity  to  serve  you.  Treat  me  as 
you  would  a  loyal  serf,  whose  only  thought  is  to  live  and 
die  for  you ;  as  the  princess  of  the  Middle  Ages  treated  the 
knight  of  low  degree,  who  devoted  himself  to  her  service. 
There  is  nothing  you  could  ask  me  to  do  for  you  that 
would  not  be  to  me  a  pleasure;  and  all  the  more  so,  if  it 
involved  any  labor  or  difficulty.  In  return,  be  assured, 


204  WE  AND  OUR  NEIGHBORS 

that  merely  by  being  the  woman  you  are,  merely  by  the 
love  which  you  have  given  and  still  give  to  one  so  unwor 
thy,  you  are  a  constant  strength  to  me,  an  encouragement 
never  to  faint  in  a  struggle  which  must  last  as  long  as  this 
life  lasts.  For  although  we  must  not  forget  that  life,  in 
the  best  sense  of  the  word,  lasts  forever,  yet  this  first  mor 
tal  phase  of  it  is,  thank  God,  but  short.  There  is  another 
and  a  higher  life  for  those  whose  life  has  been  a  failure 
here.  Those  who  die  fighting  —  even  though  they  fall 
many  times  trodden  under  the  hoof  of  the  enemy  —  will 
find  themselves  there  made  more  than  conquerors  through 
One  who  hath  loved  them. 

In  this  age,  when  so  many  are  giving  up  religion,  hearts 
like  yours  and  mine,  Caroline,  that  know  the  real  strain 
and  anguish  of  this  present  life,  are  the  ones  to  appreciate 
the  absolute  necessity  of  faith  in  the  great  hereafter. 
Without  this,  how  cruel  is  life!  How  bitter,  how  even 
unjust,  the  weakness  and  inexperience  with  which  human 
beings  are  pushed  forth  amid  the  grinding  and  clashing  of 
natural  laws  —  laws  of  whose  operation  they  are  ignorant 
and  yet  whose  penalties  are  inexorable!  If  there  be  not 
a  Guiding  Father,  a  redeeming  future,  how  dark  is  the 
prospect  of  this  life !  and  who  can  wonder  that  the  ancients, 
many  of  the  best  of  them,  considered  suicide  as  one  of  the 
reserved  rights  of  human  nature  1  Without  religious  faith, 
I  certainly  should.  I  am  making  this  letter  too  long ;  the 
pleasure  of  speaking  to  you  tempts  me  still  to  prolong  it, 
but  I  forbear. 

Ever  yours,  devotedly,  BOLTON. 

[Caroline  to  Bolton.] 

MY  DEAR  FRIEND,  —  How  can  I  thank  you  for  the 
confidence  you  have  shown  me  in  your  letter?  You  were 
not  mistaken  in  thinking  that  this  long  silence  has  been 
cruel  to  me.  It  is  more  cruel  to  a  woman  than  it  can  pos- 


TWO  VIEWS   OF  LIFE  205 

sibly  be  to  a  man,  because  if  to  him  silence  be  a  pain,  he 
yet  is  conscious  all  the  time  that  he  has  the  power  to  break 
it;  he  has  the  right  to  speak  at  any  time,  but  a  woman 
must  die  silent.  Every  fibre  of  her  being  says  this.  She 
cannot  speak,  she  must  suffer  as  the  dumb  animals  suffer. 

I  have,  I  confess,  at  times,  been  bitterly  impatient  of 
this  long  reserve,  knowing,  as  I  did,  that  you  had  not 
ceased  to  feel  what  you  once  felt.  I  saw,  in  our  brief 
interviews  in  New  York,  that  you  loved  me  still.  A 
woman  is  never  blind  to  that  fact,  with  whatever  care  it  is 
sought  to  be  hidden.  I  saw  that  you  felt  all  you  once 
professed,  and  yet  were  determined  to  conceal  it,  and  treat 
with  me  on  the  calm  basis  of  ordinary  friendship,  and  some 
times  I  was  indignant:  forgive  me  the  injustice. 

You  see  that  such  a  course  is  of  no  use,  as  a  means  of 
making  one  forget.  To  know  one's  self  passionately  be 
loved  by  another  who  never  avows  it  is  something  danger 
ous  to  the  imagination.  It  gives  rise  to  a  thousand  rest 
less  conjectures,  and  is  fatal  to  peace.  We  can  reconcile 
ourselves  in  time  to  any  certainty;  it  is  only  when  we  are 
called  upon  to  accommodate  ourselves  to  possibilities,  un 
certain  as  vaporous  clouds,  that  we  weary  ourselves  in 
fruitless  efforts. 

Your  letter  avows  what  I  knew  before ;  what  you  often 
told  me  in  our  happy  days :  and  I  now  say  in  return  that 
I,  like  you,  have  never  forgotten;  that  your  image  and 
presence  have  been  to  me  as  mine  to  you,  ever  a  part  of 
my  consciousness  through  all  these  years  of  separation. 
And  now  you  ask  me  to  change  all  this  into  a  cool  and  pru 
dent  friendship,  after  the  manner  of  the  world;  that  is  to 
say,  to  take  all  from  you,  to  accept  the  entire  devotion  of 
your  heart  and  life,  but  be  careful  to  risk  nothing  in  re 
turn,  to  keep  at  a  safe  distance  from  your  possible  troubles, 
lest  I  be  involved, 

Do  you  think  me  capable  of  this?     Is  it  like  me?  and 


206  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

what  would  you  think  and  say  to  a  friend  who  should 
make  the  same  proposition  to  you1?  Put  it  to  yourself: 
what  would  you  think  of  yourself,  if  you  could  be  so  coldly 
wary  and  prudent  with  regard  to  a  friend  who  was  giving 
to  you  the  whole  devotion  of  heart  and  life  ? 

No,  dear  friend,  this  is  all  idle  talk.  Away  with  it !  I 
feel  that  I  am  capable  of  as  entire  devotion  to  you  as  I 
know  you  are  to  me;  never  doubt  it.  The  sad  fatality 
which  clouds  your  life  makes  this  feeling  only  the  more 
intense;  as  we  feel  for  those  who  are  a  part  of  our  own 
hearts  when  in  suffering  and  danger.  In  one  respect,  my 
medical  studies  are  an  advantage  to  me.  They  have  placed 
me  at  a  standpoint  where  my  judgment  on  these  questions 
and  subjects  is  different  from  that  of  ordinary  women. 
An  understanding  of  the  laws  of  physical  being,  of  the 
conditions  of  brain  and  nerve  forces,  may  possibly  at  some 
future  day  bring  a  remedy  for  such  sufferings  as  yours.  I 
look  for  this  among  the  possible  triumphs  of  science,  —  it 
adds  interest  to  the  studies  and  lectures  I  am  pursuing.  I 
shall  not  be  to  you  what  many  women  are  to  the  men 
whom  they  love,  an  added  weight  to  fall  upon  you  if  you 
fall,  to  crush  you  under  the  burden  of  my  disappointments 
and  anxieties  and  distresses.  Knowing  that  your  heart  is 
resolute  and  your  nature  noble,  a  failure,  supposing  such 
a  possibility,  would  be  to  me  only  like  a  fever  or  a  paraly 
sis, —  a  subject  for  new  care  and  watchfulness  and  devo 
tion,  not  one  for  tears  or  reproaches  or  exhortations. 

There  are  lesions  of  the  will  that  are  no  more  to  be 
considered  subject  to  moral  condemnation  than  a  strain  of 
the  spinal  column  or  a  sudden  fall  from  paralysis.  It  is 
a  misfortune;  and  to  real  true  affection,  a  misfortune  only 
renders  the  sufferer  more  dear  and  redoubles  devotion. 

Your  letter  gives  me  courage  to  live  —  courage  to  pursue 
the  course  set  before  me  here.  I  will  make  the  most  of 
myself  that  I  can  for  your  sake,  since  all  I  am  or  can  be 


TWO  VIEWS   OF  LIFE  207 

is  yours.  Already  I  hope  that  I  am  of  use  to  you  in  open 
ing  the  doors  of  confidence.  Believe  me,  dear,  nothing  is 
so  bad  for  the  health  of  the  mind  or  the  body  as  to  have 
a  constant  source  of  anxiety  and  apprehension  that  cannot 
be  spoken  of  to  anybody.  The  mind  thus  shut  within 
itself  becomes  a  cave  of  morbid  horrors.  I  believe  these 
unshared  fears,  these  broodings,  and  dreads  unspoken, 
often  fulfill  their  own  prediction  by  the  unhealthy  states 
of  mind  that  they  bring.  The  chambers  of  the  soul  ought 
to  be  daily  opened  and  aired;  the  sunshine  of  a  friend's 
presence  ought  to  shine  through  them,  to  dispel  sickly 
damps  and  the  malaria  of  fears  and  horrors.  If  I  could 
be  with  you  and  see  you  daily,  my  presence  should  cheer 
you,  my  faith  in  you  should  strengthen  your  faith  in  your 
self. 

For  my  part,  I  can  see  how  the  very  sensitiveness  of 
your  moral  temperament,  which  makes  you  so  dread  a  fail 
ure,  exposes  you  to  fail.  I  think  the  near  friends  of  per 
sons  who  have  your  danger  often  hinder  instead  of  helping 
them  by  the  manifestation  of  their  fears  and  anxieties. 
They  think  there  is  no  way  but  to  "pile  up  the  agony," 
to  intensify  the  sense  of  danger  and  responsibility,  when 
the  fact  is,  the  subject  of  it  is  feeling  now  all  the  strain 
that  human  nerves  can  feel  without  cracking. 

We  all  know  that  we  can  walk  with  a  cool  head  across 
a  narrow  plank  only  one  foot  from  the  ground.  But  put 
the  plank  across  a  chasm  a  thousand  feet  in  depth,  and  the 
head  swims.  We  have  the  same  capacity  in  both  cases; 
but,  in  the  latter,  the  awfulness  of  the  risk  induces  a 
nervous  anxiety  that  amounts  to  a  paralysis  of  the  will. 

Don't,  therefore,  let  this  dread  grow  on  you  by  the 
horror  of  lonely  brooding.  Treat  it  as  you  would  the 
liability  to  any  other  disease,  openly,  rationally,  and  hope 
fully  ;  and  keep  yourself  in  the  daily  light  and  warmth  of 
sympathetic  intercourse  with  friends  who  understand  you 


208  WE  AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

and  can  help  you.  There  are  Eva  and  Harry  —  noble, 
true  friends,  indebted  to  you  for  many  favors,  and  devoted 
to  you  with  a  loyal  faithfulness.  Let  their  faith  and  mine 
in  you  strengthen  your  belief  in  yourself.  And  don't, 
above  all  things,  take  any  load  of  responsibility  about  my 
happiness,  and  talk  about  being  the  blight  and  shadow  on 
my  life.  I  trust  I  am  learning  that  we  were  sent  into  this 
world,  not  to  clamor  for  happiness,  but  to  do  our  part  in 
a  life-work.  What  matter  is  it  whether  I  am  happy  or 
not,  if  I  do  my  part?  I  know  all  the  risks  and  all  the 
dangers  that  come  from  being  identified,  heart  and  soul, 
with  the  life  of  another  as  I  am  with  yours.  I  know  the 
risks,  and  am  ready  to  face  them.  I  am  ready  to  live  for 
you  and  die  for  you,  and  count  it  all  joy  to  the  last. 

I  was  much  touched  by  what  you  said  of  those  who  have 
died  defeated  yet  fighting.  Yes,  it  is  my  belief  that  many 
a  poor  soul  who  has  again  and  again  failed  in  the  conflict 
has  yet  put  forth  more  effort,  practiced  more  self-denial, 
than  hundreds  of  average  Christians;  and  He  who  knows 
what  the  trial  is  will  judge  each  one  tenderly  —  that  is  to 
say,  justly. 

But  for  you  there  must  be  a  future,  even  in  this  life. 
I  am  assured  of  it,  and  you  must  believe  it;  you  must  be 
lieve  with  my  faith,  and  hope  in  my  hope.  Come  what 
will,  I  am,  heart  and  soul  and  forever, 

Yours,  CAROLINE. 


CHAPTER   XXIII 

THE    SISTERS    OF    ST.    BARNABAS 

WHO  was  St.  Barnabas?  We  are  told  in  the  book  of 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  that  he  was  a  man  whose  name 
signified  a  "son  of  consolation."  It  must  at  once  occur 
that  such  a  saint  is  very  much  needed  in  this  weary  world 
of  ours,  and  most  worthy  to  be  the  patron  of  an  "  order. " 

To  comfort  human  sorrow,  to  heal  and  help  the  desolate 
and  afflicted,  irrespective  either  of  their  moral  worth  or  of 
any  personal  reward,  is  certainly  a  noble  and  praiseworthy 
object.  Nor  can  any  reasonable  objection  be  made  to  the 
custom  of  good  women  combining  for  this  purpose  into  a 
class  or  order,  to  be  known  by  the  name  of  such  a  primi 
tive  saint,  and  wearing  a  peculiar  livery  to  mark  their  ser 
vice,  and  having  rites  and  ceremonials  such  as  to  them  seem 
helpful  for  this  end.  Surely  the  work  is  hard  enough, 
and  weary  enough,  to  entitle  the  doers  thereof  to  do  it  in 
their  own  way,  as  they  feel  they  best  can,  and  to  have  any 
sort  of  innocent  helps  in  the  way  of  signs  and  symbols  that 
may  seem  to  them  desirable. 

Yet  the  Sisters  of  St.  Barnabas  had  been  exposed  to  a 
sort  of  modern  form  of  persecution  from  certain  vigorous- 
minded  Protestants,  as  tending  to  Romanism.  A  clamor 
had  been  raised  about  them  for  wearing  large  crosses,  for 
bowing  before  altars,  and,  in  short,  for  a  hundred  little 
points  of  ritualism;  and  it  was  held  that  a  proper  zeal  for 
Protestantism  required  their  ejection  from  a  children's 
refuge,  where,  with  much  patience  and  Christian  mildness, 
they  were  taking  care  of  sick  babies  and  teaching  neglected 


210  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

street  children.  Mrs.  Maria  Wouvermans,  with  a  commit 
tee  of  ladies  equally  zealous  for  the  order  of  the  Church 
and  excited  about  the  dangers  of  Popery,  had  visited  the 
refuge  and  pursued  the  inquisition  even  to  the  private 
sleeping  apartments  of  the  Sisters,  unearthing  every  symp 
tom  of  principle  or  practice  that  savored  of  approach  to  the 
customs  of  the  Scarlet  Woman;  and,  as  the  result  of  re 
lentless  inquisition  and  much  vigorous  catechising,  she  and 
her  associates  made  such  reports  as  induced  the  Committee 
of  Supervision  to  withdraw  the  charity  from  the  Sisters  of 
St.  Barnabas,  and  place  it  in  other  hands.  The  Sisters, 
thus  ejected,  had  sought  work  in  other  quarters  of  the 
great  field  of  human  suffering  and  sorrow.  A  portion  of 
them  had  been  enabled  by  the  charity  of  friends  to  rent 
a  house  to  be  devoted  to  the  purposes  of  nursing  destitute 
sick  children,  with  dormitories  also  where  homeless  women 
could  find  temporary  shelter. 

The  house  was  not  a  bit  more  conventual  or  medieval 
than  the  most  commonplace  of  New  York  houses.  It  is 
true,  one  of  the  parlors  had  been  converted  into  a  chapel, 
dressed  out  and  arranged  according  to  the  preferences  of 
these  good  women.  It  had  an  altar,  with  a  gilded  cross 
flanked  by  candles,  which  there  is  no  denying  were  some 
times  lighted  in  the  daytime.  The  altar  was  duly  dressed 
with  white,  red,  green,  violet,  or  black,  according  as  the 
traditional  fasts  or  feasts  of  the  Church  came  round. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  this  simple  chapel,  with  its  flowers, 
and  candles,  and  cross,  and  its  little  ceremonial,  was  an 
immense  comfort  and  help  to  these  good  women  in  the 
work  that  they  were  doing.  But  the  most  rigid  Protest 
ant,  who  might  be  stumbled  by  this  little  attempt  at  a 
chapel,  would  have  been  melted  into  accord  when  he  went 
into  the  long  bright  room  full  of  little  cribs  and  cradles, 
where  child  invalids  of  different  ages  and  in  different  stages 
of  convalescence  were  made  happy  amid  flowers,  and 


THE   SISTERS   OF   ST.  BARNABAS  211 

and  playthings,  by  the  ministration  of  the  good  women 
who  wore  the  white  caps  and  the  large  crosses.  It  might 
occur  to  a  thoughtful  mind,  that  devotion  to  a  work  so 
sweetly  unselfish  might  well  entitle  them  to  wear  any  kind 
of  dress  and  pursue  any  kind  of  method,  unchallenged  by 
criticism. 

In  a  neat  white  bed  of  one  of  the  small  dormitories  in 
the  upper  part  of  this  house  was  lying  in  a  delirious  fever 
the  young  woman  whom  Bolton  had  carried  there  on  the 
night  of  our  story.  The  long  black  hair  had  become  loos 
ened  by  the  restless  tossing  of  her  head  from  side  to  side ; 
her  brow  was  bent  in  a  heavy  frown,  made  more  intense 
by  the  blackness  of  her  eyebrows;  her  large  dark  eyes 
were  wandering  wildly  to  and  fro  over  every  object  in  the 
room,  and  occasionally  fixing  themselves  with  a  strange 
look  of  inquiry  on  the  Sister  who,  in  white  cap  and  black 
robe,  sat  by  her  bedside,  changing  the  wet  cloths  on  her 
burning  head,  and  moistening  her  parched  lips  from  time 
to  time  with  a  spoonful  of  water. 

"I  can't  think  who  you  arfe,"  she  muttered,  as  the  Sister 
with  a  gentle  movement  put  a  fresh,  cool  cloth  on  her  fore 
head. 

"Never  mind,  poor  child,"  said  the  sweet  voice  in 
reply;  "try  to  be  quiet." 

"  Quiet !  me  be  quiet !  —  that 's  pretty  well !  Me !  "  and 
she  burst  into  weak,  hysteric  laughter. 

"  Hush,  hush !  "  said  the  Sister,  making  soothing  motions 
with  her  hands. 

The  wandering  eyes  closed  a  few  moments  in  a  feverish 
drowse.  In  a  moment  more  she  started  with  a  wild 
look. 

"Mother!  mother!  where  are  you?  I  can't  find  you. 
I  've  looked  and  looked  till  I  'm  so  tired,  and  I  can't  find 
you.  Mother,  come  to  me, — I'm  sick!"  —  and  the  girl 
rose  and  threw  out  her  arms  wildly. 


212  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

The  Sister  passed  her  arm  round  her  tenderly  and  spoke 
with  a  gentle  authority,  making  her  lie  down  again. 

Then,  in  a  sweet  low  voice,  she  began  singing  a  hymn :  — 

"  Jesus,  lover  of  my  soul, 

Let  me  to  thy  bosom  fly, 
While  the  billows  near  me  roll, 
While  the  tempest  still  is  high." 

As  she  sung,  the  dark  sad  eyes  fixed  themselves  upon 
her  with  a  vague,  troubled  questioning.  The  Sister  went 

on:  — 

"  Hide  me,  0  my  Saviour,  hide, 

Till  the  storm  of  life  is  past; 
Safe  into  the  haven  guide ; 
Oh,  receive  my  soul  at  last." 

It  was  just  day-dawn,  and  the  patient  had  waked  from 
a  temporary  stupor  produced  by  a  narcotic  which  had  been 
given  a  few  hours  before  to  compose  her. 

The  purple-and-rose  color  of  dawn  was  just  touching 
faintly  everything  in  the  room.  Another  Sister  entered 
softly,  to  take  the  place  of  the  one  who  had  watched  for 

the  last  four  hours. 

i 

"  How  is  she  ?  "  she  said. 

"Quite  out  of  her  head,  poor  thing.  Her  fever  is  very 
high." 

"We  must  have  the  doctor,"  said  the  other.  "She  looks 
like  a  very  sick  girl." 

"That  she  certainly  is.  She  slept,  under  the  opiate, 
but  kept  starting,  and  frowning,  and  muttering  in  her 
sleep ;  and  this  morning  she  waked  quite  wild. " 

"  She  must  have  got  dreadfully  chilled,  walking  so  late 
in  the  street  —  so  poorly  clad,  too !  " 

With  this  brief  conversation,  the  second  Sister  assumed 
her  place  by  the  bedside,  and  the  first  went  to  get  some 
rest  in  her  own  room. 

As  day  grew  brighter,  the  singing  of  the  matins  in  the 
chapel  came  floating  up  in  snatches;  and  the  sick  girl  lis- 


THE   SISTERS   OF   ST.  BARNABAS  213 

tened  to  it  with  the  same  dazed  and  confused  air  of  inquiry 
with  which  she  looked  on  all  around.  "Who  is  singing?" 
she  said  to  herself.  "It's  pretty,  and  good.  But  how 
came  I  here  1  I  was  so  cold,  so  cold  —  out  there !  —  and 
now  it 's  so  hot.  Oh,  my  head!  my  head!  " 

A  few  hours  later,  Mr.  St.  John  called  at  the  Refuge  to 
inquire  after  the  new  inmate.  He  was  one  of  the  patrons 
of  the  Sisters.  He  had  contributed  liberally  to  the  ex 
penses  of  the  present  establishment,  and  stood  at  all  times 
ready  to  assist  with  influence  and  advice. 

The  Refuge  was,  in  fact,  by  the  use  of  its  dormitories, 
a  sort  of  receiving  station  for  homeless  and  desolate  people, 
where  they  might  find  temporary  shelter,  where  their  wants 
might  be  inquired  into,  and  help  found  for  them  according 
to  their  need. 

After  the  interview  with  Bolton  had  made  him  acquainted 
with  the  state  of  the  case,  Mr.  St.  John  went  immediately 
to  the  Refuge.  He  was  received  in  the  parlor  by  a  sweet- 
faced,  motherly  woman,  with  her  white  cap  and  black 
robe,  and  with  a  large  black  cross  depending  from  her  gir 
dle.  There  was  about  her  an  air  of  innocent  sanctity  and 
seclusion  from  the  outdoor  bustle  of  modern  life  that  was 
refreshing. 

She  readily  gave  him  an  account  of  the  new  inmate, 
whose  sad  condition  had  excited  the  sympathy  of  all  the 
Sisters.  She  had  come  to  them,  she  said,  in  a  state  of 
most  woeful  agitation  and  distress,  having  walked  the 
streets  on  a  freezing  night  till  a  late  hour,  in  very  insuffi 
cient  clothing.  Immediately  on  being  received,  she  began 
to  have  violent  chills,  followed  by  burning  fever,  and  had 
been  all  night  tossing  restlessly  and  talking  wildly. 

This  morning,  they  had  sent  for  the  doctor,  who  pro 
nounced  her  in  a  brain  fever,  and  in  a  condition  of  great 
danger.  She  was  still  out  of  her  mind,  and  could  give  no 
rational  account  of  herself.  "It  is  piteous  to  hear  her  call 


214  WE  AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

upon  her  mother,"  said  the  Sister.      "Poor  child!  perhaps 
her  mother  is  distressing  herself  about  her." 

Mr.  St.  John  promised  to  secure  the  assistance  and 
sympathy  of  some  benevolent  women  to  aid  the  Sisters  in 
their  charge,  and  took  his  leave,  promising  to  call  daily. 


CHAPTER   XXIV 
EVA  TO  HARRY'S  MOTHER 

MY  DEAR  MOTHER,  —  When  I  wrote  you  last  we  were 
quite  prosperous,  having  just  come  through  with  our  first 
evening  as  a  great  success;  and  everybody  since  has  been 
saying  most  agreeable  things  to  us  about  it.  Last  Thurs 
day,  we  had  our  second,  and  it  was  even  pleasanter  than 
the  last,  because  people  had  got  acquainted,  so  that  they 
really  wanted  to  see  each  other  again.  There  was  a  most 
charming  atmosphere  of  ease  and  sociability.  Bolton  and 
Mr.  St.  John  are  getting  quite  intimate.  Mr.  St.  John, 
too,  develops  quite  a  fine  social  talent,  and  has  come  out 
wonderfully.  The  side  of  a  man  that  one  sees  in  the 
church  and  the  pulpit  is  after  all  only  one  side,  as  we  have 
discovered.  I  find  that  he  has  quite  a  gift  in  conversation, 
when  you  fairly  get  him  at  it.  Then,  his  voice  for  singing 
comes  into  play,  and  he  and  Angie  and  Dr.  Campbell  and 
Alice  make  up  a  quartette  quite  magnificent  for  non-profes 
sionals.  Angie  has  a  fine  soprano,  and  Alice  takes  the 
contralto,  and  the  doctor,  with  his  great  broad  shoulders 
and  deep  chest,  makes  a  splendid  bass.  Mr.  St.  John's 
tenor  is  really  very  beautiful.  It  is  one  of  those  penetrat 
ing,  sympathetic  voices  that  indicate  both  feeling  and 
refinement,  and  they  are  all  of  them  surprised  and  delighted 
to  find  how  well  they  go  together.  Thursday  evening  they 
went  on  from  thing  to  thing,  and  found  that  they  could 
sing  this  and  that  and  the  other,  till  the  evening  took  a 
good  deal  the  form  of  a  musical.  But  never  mind,  it 
brought  them  acquainted  with  each  other  and  made  them 


216  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

look  forward  to  the  next  reunion  as  something  agreeable. 
Ever  since,  the  doctor  goes  round  humming  tunes,  and 
says  he  wants  St.  John  to  try  the  tenor  of  this  and  that, 
and  really  has  quite  lost  sight  of  his  being  anything  else 
but  a  musical  brother.  So  here  is  the  common  ground  I 
wanted  to  find  between  them. 

The  doctor  has  told  Mr.  St.  John  to  call  on  him  when 
ever  he  can  make  him  useful  in  his  visits  among  the  poor. 
Our  doctor  loves  to  talk  as  if  he  were  a  hard-hearted,  un 
believing  pirate,  who  didn't  care  a  straw  for  his  fellow- 
creatures,  while  he  loses  no  opportunity  to  do  anybody  or 
anything  a  kindness. 

You  know  I  told  you  in  my  last  letter  about  a  girl  that 
Harry  and  Bolton  found  in  the  street,  the  night  of  our  first 
reception,  and  that  they  took  her  to  the  St.  Barnabas 
Refuge.  The  poor  creature  has  been  lying  there  ever 
since,  sick  of  a  brain  fever,  caught  by  cold  and  exposure, 
and  Dr.  Campbell  has  given  his  services  daily.  If  she 
had  been  the  richest  lady  in  the  land  he  could  not  have 
shown  more  anxiety  and  devotion  to  her  than  he  has, 
calling  twice  and  sometimes  three  times  a  day,  and  one 
night  watching  nearly  all  night.  She  is  still  too  low  arid 
weak  to  give  any  account  of  herself;  all  we  know  of  her 
is  that  she  is  one  of  those  lost  sheep,  to  seek  whom  the 
Good  Shepherd  would  leave  the  ninety-nine  who  went  not 
astray.  I  have  been  once  or  twice  to  sit  by  her,  and  re 
lieve  the  good  Sisters  who  have  so  much  else  to  do;  and 
Angelique  and  Alice  have  also  taken  their  turns.  It  seems 
very  little  for  us  to  do,  when  these  good  women  spend  all 
their  time  and  all  their  strength  for  those  who  have  no 
more  claim  on  them  than  they  have  on  us. 

It  is  a  week  since  I  began  this  letter,  and  something 
quite  surprising  to  me  has  just  developed.  I  told  you  we 
had  been  to  help  nurse  the  poor  girl  at  the  Sisters',  and 


EVA  TO  HARRY'S  MOTHER  217 

the  last  week  she  has  been  rapidly  mending.  Well,  yes 
terday,  as  I  didn't  feel  very  well,  and  my  Mary  is  an 
excellent  nurse,  I  took  her  there  to  sit  with  the  patient  in 
my  place,  when  a  most  strange  scene  ensued.  The  moment 
Mary  looked  on  her  she  recognized  her  own  daughter,  who 
had  left  her  some  years  ago  with  a  bad  man.  Mary  had 
never  spoken  to  me  of  this  daughter,  and  I  only  knew,  in 
a  sort  of  general  way,  that  she  had  left  her  mother  under 
some  painful  circumstances.  The  recognition  was  dread 
fully  agitating  to  Mary  and  to  the  poor  girl;  indeed,  for 
some  time  it  was  feared  that  the  shock  would  produce  a 
relapse.  The  Sisters  say  that  the  poor  thing  has  been  con 
stantly  calling  for  her  mother  in  her  distress. 

It  really  seemed,  for  the  time,  as  if  Mary  were  going  to 
be  wholly  unnerved.  She  has  a  great  deal  of  that  respect 
able  pride  of  family  character  which  belongs  to  the  better 
class  of  the  Irish,  and  it  has  been  a  bitter  humiliation  to 
her  to  have  to  acknowledge  her  daughter's  shame  to  me; 
but  I  felt  that  it  would  relieve  her  to  tell  the  whole  story 
to  some  one,  and  I  drew  it  all  out  of  her.  This  poor 
Maggie  had  the  misfortune  to  be  very  handsome.  She  was 
so  pretty  as  a  little  girl,  her  mother  tells  me,  as  to  attract 
constant  attention;  and  I  rather  infer  that  the  father  and 
mother  both  made  a  pet  and  plaything  of  her,  and  were 
unboundedly  indulgent.  The  girl  grew  up  handsome,  and 
thoughtless,  and  self-confident,  and  so  fell  an  easy  prey  to 
a  villain  who  got  her  to  leave  her  home  on  a  promise  of 
marriage  which  he  never  kept.  She  lived  with  him  a 
while  in  one  place  and  another,  and  he  became  tired  of  her 
and  contrived  to  place  her  in  a  house  of  evil,  where  she 
was  entrapped  and  enslaved  for  a  long  time.  Having  by 
some  means  found  out  where  her  mother  was  living,  she 
escaped  from  her  employers,  and  hung  round  the  house 
irresolutely  for  some  time,  wishing  but  fearing  to  present 


218  WE  AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

herself,  and  when  she  spoke  to  Harry  in  the  street,  tho 
night  after  our  party,  she  was  going  in  a  wild,  desperate 
way  to  ask  something  about  her  mother  —  knowing  that  he 
was  the  man  with  whom  she  was  living. 

Such  seems  to  be  her  story;  but  I  suppose,  what  with 
misery  and  cold,  and  the  coming  on  of  the  fever,  the  poor 
thing  hardly  had  her  senses,  or  knew  what  she  was  about 
—  the  fever  must  have  been  then  upon  her. 

So  you  see,  dear  mother,  I  was  wishing  in  my  last  that 
I  could  go  off  with  Sibyl  Selwyn  on  her  mission  to  the  lost 
sheep,  and  now  here  is  one  brought  to  my  very  door.  Is 
not  this  sent  to  me  as  my  work  1  as  if  the  good  Lord  had 
said,  "No,  child,  your  feet  are  not  strong  enough  to  go 
over  the  stones  and  briers,  looking  for  the  lost  sheep;  you 
are  not  able  to  take  them  out  of  the  jaws  of  the  wolf;  but 
here  is  a  poor  wounded  lamb  that  I  leave  at  your  door  — 
that  is  your  part  of  the  great  work."  So  I  understand  it, 
and  I  have  already  told  Mary  that  as  soon  as  Maggie  is 
able  to  sit  up,  we  will  take  her  home  with  us,  and  let  her 
stay  with  us  till  she  is  strong  and  well,  and  then  we  will 
try  and  put  her  back  into  good  respectable  ways,  and  keep 
her  from  falling  again. 

I  think  persons  in  our  class  of  life  cannot  be  too  consid 
erate  of  the  disadvantages  of  poor  working  women  in  the 
matter  of  bringing  up  children.  A  very  beautiful  girl  in 
that  walk  of  life  is  exposed  to  solicitation  and  temptation 
that  never  come  near  to  people  in  our  stations.  We  ,are 
guarded  on  all  hands  by  our  very  position.  I  can  see  in 
this  poor  child  the  wreck  of  what  must  have  been  very 
striking  beauty.  Her  hair  is  lovely,  her  eyes  are  wonder 
fully  fine,  and  her  hands,  emaciated  as  she  is,  are  finely 
formed  and  delicate.  Well,  being  beautiful,  she  was  just 
like  any  other  young  girl  —  her  head  was  turned  by  flat 
tery.  She  was  silly  and  foolish,  and  had  not  the  protec 
tions  and  barriers  that  are  around  us,  and  she  fell.  Well, 


EVA  TO  HARRY'S  MOTHER        219 

then,  we  that  have  been  more  fortunate  must  help  her  up. 
Is  it  not  so  ? 

So,  dear  mother,  my  mission  work  is  coming  to  me.  I 
need  not  go  out  for  it.  I  shall  write  more  of  this  in  a  day 
or  two.  Ever  yours,  EVA. 


CHAPTEE   XXV 

AUNT    MARIA    ENDEAVORS    TO    SET    MATTERS    RIGHT 

MRS.  MARIA  WOUVERMANS  was  one  of  those  forces 
in  creation  to  whom  quiet  is  impossible.  Watchfulness, 
enterprise,  and  motion  were  the  laws  of  her  existence,  as 
incessantly  operating  as  any  other  laws  of  nature. 

When  we  last  saw  her,  she  was  in  high  ill  humor  with 
her  sister,  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel,  with  Alice  and  Eva,  and  the 
whole  family.  She  revenged  herself  upon  them,  as  such 
good  creatures  know  how  to  do,  by  heaping  coals  of  fire  on 
their  heads  in  the  form  of  ostentatiously  untiring  and  un 
called-for  labors  for  them  all.  The  places  she  explored 
to  get  their  laces  mended  and  their  quillings  done  up  and 
their  dresses  made,  the  pilgrimages  she  performed  in  omni 
buses,  the  staircases  she  climbed,  the  men  and  women  whom 
she  browbeat  and  circumvented  in  bargains  —  all  to  the 
advantage  of  the  Van  Arsdel  purse  —  were  they  not  re 
counted  and  told  over  in  a  way  to  appall  the  conscience  of 
poor,  easy  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel,  whom  they  summarily  con 
victed  of  being  an  inefficient  little  know-nothing,  and  of 
her  girls,  who  thus  stood  arraigned  for  the  blackest  ingrati 
tude  in  not  appreciating  Aunt  Maria  1 

"I'll  tell  you  what  it  is,  Alice,"  said  Eva,  when  Aunt 
Maria's  labors  had  come  to  the  usual  climax  of  such  smart 
people,  and  laid  her  up  with  a  sick-headache,  "we  girls 
have  just  got  to  make  up  with  Aunt  Maria,  or  she  '11  tear 
down  all  New  York.  I  always  notice  that  when  she  's 
out  with  us  she  goes  tearing  about  in  this  way,  using  her 
self  up  for  us  —  doing  things  no  mortal  wants  her  to  do, 


AUNT  MARIA  ENDEAVORS  TO  SET  MATTERS  RIGHT      221 

and  yet  that  it  seems  black  ingratitude  not  to  thank  her 
for.  Now,  Alice,  you  are  the  one,  this  time,  and  you 
must  just  go  and  sit  with  her  and  make  up,  as  I  did." 

"  But,  Eva,  /  know  the  trouble  you  fell  into,  letting  her 
and  mother  entangle  you  with  Wat  Sydney,  and  I  'm  not 
going  to  have  it  happen  again.  I  will  not  be  compromised 
in  any  way  or  shape  with  a  man  whom  I  never  mean  to 
marry. " 

"Oh,  well,  I  think  by  this  time  Aunt  Maria  under 
stands  this,  only  she  wants  you  to  come  back  and  be  lov 
ing  to  her,  and  say  you  're  sorry  you  can't,  etc.  After  all, 
Aunt  Maria  is  devoted  to  us  and  is  miserable  when  we  are 
out  with  her." 

"Well,  I  hate  to  have  friends  that  one  must  be  always 
bearing  with  and  deferring  to." 

"Well,  Alice,  you  remember  Mr.  St.  John's  sermons  on 
the  trials  of  the  first  Christians  —  when  he  made  us  all  feel 
that  it  would  have  been  a  blessed  chance  to  go  to  the  stake 
for  our  religion  1 " 

"Yes;  it  was  magnificent.      I  felt  a  great  exaltation." 

"Well,  I'll  tell  you  what  I  thought.  It  may  be  as 
heroic,  and  more  difficult,  to  put  down  our  own  temper 
and  make  the  first  concession  to  an  unreasonable  old  aunt 
who  really  loves  us  than  to  be  martyrs  for  Christ.  Nobody 
wants  us  to  be  martyrs  nowadays ;  but  I  think  these  things 
that  make  no  show  and  have  no  glory  are  a  harder  cross  to 
take  up." 

"Well,  Eva,  I  '11  do  as  you  say,"  said  Alice,  after  a  few 
moments  of  silence,  "for  really  you  speak  the  truth.  I 
don't  know  anything  harder  than  to  go  and  make  conces 
sions  to  a  person  who  has  acted  as  ridiculously  as  Aunt 
Maria  has,  and  who  will  take  all  your  concessions  and 
never  own  a  word  on  her  side." 

"Well,  dear,  what  I  think  in  these  cases  is,  that  I  am 
not  perfect.  There  are  always  enough  things  where  I 


222  WE   AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

didn't  do  quite  right  for  me  to  confess;  and  as  to  her  con 
fessing,  that 's  not  my  affair.  What  /have  to  do  is  to  cut 
loose  from  my  own  sins;  they  are  mine,  and  hers  are  hers." 

"True,"  said  Alice;  "and  the  fact  is,  I  did  speak  im 
properly  to  Aunt  Maria.  She  is  older  than  I  am.  I 
ought  not  to  have  said  the  things  I  did.  I  'm  hot  tem 
pered,  and  always  say  more  than  I  mean." 

"Well,  Ally,  do  as  I  did  —  confess  everything  you  can 
think  of  and  then  say,  as  I  did,  that  you  must  still  be  firm 
upon  one  point;  and,  depend  upon  it,  Aunt  Maria  will  be 
glad  to  be  friends  again." 

This  conversation  had  led  to  an  amelioration  which 
caused  Aunt  Maria  to  appear  at  Eva's  second  reunion  in 
her  best  point  lace  and  with  her  most  affable  company 
manners,  whereby  she  quite  won  the  heart  of  simple  Mrs. 
Betsey  Benthusen,  and  was  received  with  patronizing  civil 
ity  by  Miss  Dorcas.  That  good  lady  surveyed  Mrs.  Wou- 
vermans  with  an  amicable  scrutiny  as  a  specimen  of  a  really 
creditable  production  of  modern  New  York  life.  She  took 
occasion  to  remark  to  her  sister  that  the  Wouvermans  were 
an  old  family  of  unquestioned  position,  and  that  really  Mrs. 
Wouvermans  had  acquired  quite  the  family  air. 

Miss  Dorcas  was  one  of  those  people  who  sit  habitually 
on  thrones  of  judgment  and  see  the  children  of  this  world 
pass  before  them,  with  but  one  idea,  to  determine  what 
she  should  think  of  them.  What  they  were  likely  to  think 
of  her  was  no  part  of  her  concern.  Her  scrutinies  ,and 
judgments  were  extremely  quiet,  tempered  with  great  mod 
eration  and  Christian  charity,  and  were  so  seldom  spoken 
to  anybody  else  that  they  did  no  one  any  harm. 

She  was  a  spectator  at  the  grand  theatre  of  life;  it  in 
terested  and  amused  her  to  watch  the  acting,  but  she  kept 
her  opinions,  for  the  most  part,  to  herself.  The  reunions 
at  Eva's  were  becoming  most  interesting  to  her  as  widen 
ing  her  sphere  of  observation.  In  fact,  her  intercourse 


AUNT  MARIA  ENDEAVORS  TO  SET  MATTERS  RIGHT   223 

with  her  sister  could  hardly  be  called  society,  it  was  so 
habitually  that  of  a  nurse  with  a  patient.  She  said  to 
her,  of  the  many  things  which  were  in  her  mind,  only 
those  which  she  thought  she  could  bear.  She  was  always 
planning  to  employ  Mrs.  Betsey's  mind  with  varied  occu 
pations  to  prevent  her  sinking  into  morbid  gloom,  and  to 
say  only  such  things  of  everybody  and  everything  to  her 
as  would  tranquilize  and  strengthen  her.  To  Miss  Dorcas, 
the  little  white-haired  lady  was  still  the  beautiful  child 
of  past  days  —  the  indiscreet,  nighty,  pretty  pet,  to  be 
watched,  nursed,  governed,  restrained,  and  cared  for.  As 
for  conversation,  in  the  sense  of  an  unrestricted  speaking 
out  of  thoughts  as  they  arose,  it  was  long  since  Miss  Dorcas 
had  held  it  with  any  human  being.  The  straight,  tall  old 
clock  in  the  corner  was  not  more  lonely,  more  self-contained 
and  reticent. 

The  next  day  after  the  reunion  Aunt  Maria  came  at 
the  appointed  hour,  with  all  due  pomp  and  circumstance, 
to  make  her  call  upon  the  two  sisters,  and  was  received  in 
kid  gloves  in  the  best  parlor,  properly  darkened,  so  that 
the  faces  of  the  parties  could  scarcely  be  seen;  and  then 
the  three- remarked  upon  the  weather,  the  state  of  the  at 
mosphere  to-day  and  its  probable  state  to-morrow.  Mrs. 
Wouvermans  was-  properly  complimented  upon  her  niece's 
delightful  reunions;  whereat  she  drew  herself  up  with 
suitable  modesty,  as  one  who  had  been  the  source  and 
originator  of  it  all  —  claiming  property  in  charming  Mrs. 
Henderson  as  the  girl  of  her  bringing  up,  the  work  of  her 
hands,  the  specimen  of  her  powers,  marshaled  and  equipped 
by  her  for  the  field  of  life;  and  in  her  delightful  soirees, 
as  in  some  sort  a  result  of  her  management.  It  may  be 
a  consolation  to  those  who  are  ever  called  to  wrestle  with 
good  angels  like  Aunt  Maria,  that  if  they  only  hold  on  and 
overcome  them,  and  hold  their  own  independent  way,  the 
angels,  so  far  from  being  angry,  will  immediately  assume 


224  WE  AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

the  whole  merit  of  the  result.  On  the  whole,  Aunt  Maria, 
hearing  on  all  sides  nattering  things  of  Mrs.  Henderson's 
lovely  house  and  charming  evenings,  was  pluming  herself 
visibly  in  this  manner. 

Now,  as  Eva,  in  one  of  those  bursts  of  confidence  in 
which  she  could  not  help  pouring  herself  out  to  those  who 
looked  kindly  on  her,  had  talked  over  with  Miss  Dorcas 
all  Aunt  Maria's  objections  to  her  soirees,  and  her  stringent 
advice  against  them,  the  good  lady  was  quietly  amused  at 
this  assumption  of  merit. 

"  My  !  how  odd,  Dorcas  !  "  said  Mrs.  Betsey  to  her  sis 
ter  after  Mrs.  Wouvermans  had  serenely  courtesied  herself 
out.  "  Is  n't  this  the  '  Aunt  Maria ?  that  dear  Mrs.  Hen 
derson  was  telling  you  about,  that  made  all  those  objections 
to  her  little  receptions  ?  " 

"  Oh  yes,"  said  Miss  Dorcas. 

"  But  how  strange !  she  really  talks  now  as  if  she  had 
started  them." 

"People  usually  adopt  a  good  thing  if  they  find  they 
can't  hinder  it,"  said  Miss  Dorcas. 

"  I  think  it  is  just  the  oddest  thing  in  the  world ;  in 
fact,  I  don't  think  it 's  really  honest,"  said  Mrs.  Betsey. 

"It's  the  way  people  always  do,"  said  Miss  Dorcas j 
"  nothing  succeeds  like  success.  Mrs.  Wouvermans  opposed 
the  plan  because  she  thought  it  wouldn't  go.  Now  that 
she  finds  it  goes,  she  is  so  delighted  she  thinks  she  must 
have  started  it  herself." 

In  fact,  Aunt  Maria  was  in  an  uncommonly  loving  and 
genial  frame  about  this  time.  Her  fits  of  petulance  gener 
ally  had  the  good  effect  of  a  clearing-up  thunder-shower  — 
one  was  sure  of  clear  skies  for  some  time  afterwards.  The 
only  difficulty  about  these  charming  periods  of  general 
reconciliation  was  that  when  the  good  lady  once  more  felt 
herself  free  of  the  family,  and  on  easy  terms  all  around 
with  everybody,  she  immediately  commenced  in  some  new 


AUNT  MARIA  ENDEAVORS  TO  SET  MATTERS  RIGHT      225 

direction  that  process  of  managing  other  people's  affairs 
which  was  an  inevitable  result  of  her  nature.  Therefore 
she  came,  one  afternoon  not  long  after,  into  her  sister's 
dressing-room  with  an  air  of  preoccupation  and  mystery, 
which  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel  had  learned  to  dread  as  a  sign  that 
Maria  had  something  new  upon  her  mind. 

Shutting  the  doors  carefully,  with  an  air  of  great  precau 
tion  and  importance,  she  said,  "Nelly,  I've  been  wanting 
to  talk  to  you;  something  will  have  to  be  done  about  Eva: 
it  will  never  do  to  let  matters  go  on  as  they  are  going." 

Mrs.  Van  Arsdel' s  heart  began  to  sink  within  Jier;  she 
supposed  that  she  was  to  be  required  in  some  way  to  med 
dle  or  interfere  with  her  daughter.  Now,  if  anything  was 
to  be  done  of  an  unpleasant  nature,  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel  had 
always  far  rather  that  Maria  would  do  it  herself.  But  the 
most  perplexing  of  her  applications  were  when  she  began 
stirring  up  her  ease-loving,  indulgent  self  to  fulfill  any 
such  purposes  on  her  children.  So  she  said,  in  a  faltering 
voice,  "What  is  the  matter  now,  Maria?  " 

"Well,  what  should  you  think?"  said  Mrs.  Wouver- 
mans,  emphasizing  the  words.  "  You  know  that  good-for- 
nothing  daughter  of  Mary's  that  lived  with  me,  years  ago?  " 

"That  handsome  girl?     To  be  sure." 

"Handsome!  the  baggage!  I've  no  patience  when  I 
think  of  her,  with  her  airs  and  graces;  dressing  so  that  she 
really  was  mistaken  for  one  of  the  family !  And  such  im 
pertinence  !  I  made  her  walk  Spanish  very  quick  "  — 

"Well?" 

"Well,  who  do  you  suppose  this  sick  girl  is  that  Ange- 
lique  and  Alice  have  been  helping  take  care  of  in  the  new 
hospital,  or  whatever  you  call  it,  that  those  Popish  women 
have  started  up  there  ?  " 

Now  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel  knew  very  well  what  Aunt  Maria 
was  coming  to,  but  she  only  said  faintly :  — 

"Well?" 


226  WE   AND  OUR  NEIGHBORS 

"It 's  just  that  girl  and  no  other,  and  a  more  impudent 
tramp  and  hussy  doesn't  live.'7 

"It  really  is  very  shocking,"  said  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel. 

"Shocking!  well,  I  should  think  it  was;  but  that  isn't 
all.  Eva  actually  has  taken  this  creature  to  her  house, 
and  is  going  to  let  her  stay  there." 

"  Oh,  indeed  ?  "  said  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel  faintly. 

Now  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel  had  listened  sympathetically  to 
Eva  when,  in  glowing  and  tender  words,  she  had  avowed 
her  intention  of  giving  this  help  to  a  poor,  bewildered 
mother,  and  this  chance  of  recovery  to  an  erring  child,  but 
in  the  sharp,  nipping  atmosphere  of  Aunt  Maria's  hard, 
dry,  selfish  common  sense,  the  thing  looked  so  utterly  in 
defensible  that  she  only  breathed  this  faint  inquiry. 

"Yes,"  said  Aunt  Maria,  "and  it 's  all  that  Mary's  art 
She  has  been  getting  old  and  isn't  what  she  was,  and  she 
means  to  get  both  her  children  saddled  upon  Eva,  who  is 
ignorant  and  innocent  as  a  baby.  Eva  and  her  husband 
are  no  more  fit  to  manage  than  two  babes  in  the  wood,  and 
this  set  of  people  will  make  them  no  end  of  trouble.  The 
girl  is  a  perfect  witch,  and  it  will  never  do  in  the  world. 
You  ought  to  talk  to  her  and  tell  her  about  the  danger." 

"But,  Maria,  I  am  not  at  all  sure  that  it  may  not  be 
Eva's  duty  to  help  Mary  take  care  of  her  daughter." 

"Well,  if  it  was  a  daughter  that  had  behaved  herself 
decently;  but  this  creature  is  a  tramp  —  a  street-walker! 
It  is  not  respectable  to  have  her  in  the  house  a  minute^" 

"  But  where  can  she  go  1  " 

"That 's  none  of  our  lookout.  I  suppose  there  are  asy 
lums,  or  refuges,  or  something  or  other,  for  such  creatures." 

"But  if  the  Sisters  could  take  her  in  and  take  care  of 
her,  I  'm  sure  Eva  might  keep  her  awhile;  at  least  till  she 
gets  strong  enough  to  find  some  place." 

"Oh,  those  Sisters !  Don't  tell  me!  I've  no  opinion 
of  them.  Wasn't  I  on  the  committee,  and  didn't  I  find 


AUNT  MARIA  ENDEAVORS  TO  SET  MATTERS  RIGHT      227 

crucifixes,  and  rosaries,  and  prie-dieus,  and  the  Lord  knows 
what  of  Popish  trinkets  in  their  rooms  1  They  are  regular 
Jesuits,  those  women.  It 's  just  like  'em  to  take  in 
tramps  and  nurse  'em. 

"You  know,  Nelly,  I  warned  you  I  never  believed  in 
this  Mr.  St.  John  and  his  goings  on  up  there,  and  I  fore 
see  just  what  trouble  Eva  is  going  to  be  got  into  by  having 
that  sort  of  creature  put  in  upon  her.  Maggie  was  the 
most  conceited,  impertinent,  saucy  hussy  I  ever  saw.  She 
had  the  best  of  all  chances  in  my  house,  if  she  'd  been  of 
a  mind  to  behave  herself,  for  I  give  good  wages,  pay  punc 
tually,  and  mine  is  about  as  good  a  house  for  a  young  woman 
to  be  trained  in  as  there  is.  Nobody  can  say  that  Maggie 
didn't  have  a  fair  chance  with  me! " 

"But  really,  Maria,  I'm  afraid  that  unless  Mary  can 
take  care  of  her  daughter  at  Eva's  she  '11  leave  her  alto 
gether  and  go  to  housekeeping,  and  Eva  never  would  know 
how  to  get  along  without  Mary." 

"Oh,  nonsense!  I'll  engage  to  find  Eva  a  good,  stout 
girl  —  or  two  of  them,  for  that  matter,  since  she  thinks 
she  could  afford  two  —  that  will  do  better  than  Mary,  who 
is  getting  older  every  year  and  less  capable.  I  make  it  a 
principle  to  cut  off  girls  that  have  sick  friends,  and  all  such 
entanglements  and  responsibilities,  right  away;  it  unfits 
them  for  my  service." 

"Yes,  but,  Maria,  you  must  consider  that  Eva  isn't  like 
you.  Eva  really  is  fond  of  Mary,  and  had  rather  have  her 
there  than  a  younger  and  stronger  woman.  Mary  has  been 
an  old  servant  in  the  family.  Eva  has  grown  up  with  her. 
She  loves  Eva  like  a  child." 

"Oh,  pshaw!"  said  Aunt  Maria.  "Now,  of  all  things, 
don't  be  sentimental  about  servants.  It 's  a  little  too  ab 
surd.  We  are  to  attend  to  our  own  interests ! " 

"But  you  see,  sister,"  said  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel,  "Eva  is 
just  what  you  call  sentimental,  and  it  wouldn't  do  the 


228  WE  AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

least  good  for  me  to  talk  to  her.  She  's  a  married  woman, 
and  she  and  her  husband  have  a  right  to  manage  their 
affairs  in  their  own  way.  Now,  to  tell  the  truth,  Eva  told 
me  about  this  affair,  and  on  the  whole  "  —  here  Mrs.  Van 
Arsdel's  voice  trembled  weakly  —  "on  the  whole,  I  didn't 
think  it  would  do  any  good,  you  know,  to  oppose  her;  and 
really,  Maria,  I  was  sorry  for  poor  Mary.  You  don't 
know,  you  never  had  a  daughter,  but  I  couldn't  help 
thinking  that  if  I  were  a  poor  woman,  and  a  daughter  of 
mine  had  gone  astray,  I  should  be  so  glad  to  have  a  chance 
given  her  to  do  better;  and  so  I  really  couldn't  find  it  in 
my  heart  to  oppose  Eva.'7 

"Well,  you  '11  see  what  '11  come  of  it,"  said  Aunt  Maria, 
who  had  stood,  a  model  of  hard,  sharp,  uncompromising 
common  sense,  looking  her  sister  down  during  this  weak 
apology  for  the  higher  wisdom.  For  now,  as  in  the  days 
of  old,  the  wisdom  of  the  cross  is  foolishness  to  the  wise 
and  prudent  of  the  world;  and  the  heavenly  arithmetic, 
which  counts  the  one  lost  sheep  more  than  the  ninety  and 
nine  that  went  not  astray,  is  still  the  arithmetic,  not  of 
earth,  but  of  heaven.  There  are  many  who  believe  in  the 
Trinity,  and  the  Incarnation,  and  all  the  articles  of  the 
Athanasian  and  Nicene  Creeds,  to  whom  this  wisdom  of 
the  Master  is  counted  as  folly:  "For  the  natural  man  un- 
derstandeth  not  the  things  of  the  kingdom  of  God;  they 
are  foolishness  unto  him :  neither  can  he  know  them. " 

Now  Aunt  Maria  was  in  an  eminent  degree  a  specimen 
of  the  feminine  sort  of  "natural  man."  That  a  young  and 
happy  wife,  with  a  peaceful,  prosperous  home,  should  put 
a  particle  of  her  own  happiness  to  risk,  or  herself  to  incon 
venience,  for  the  sake  of  a  poor  servant  woman  and  a  sinful 
child,  was,  in  her  view,  folly  amounting  almost  to  fatuity; 
and  she  inly  congratulated  herself  with  the  thought  that 
her  sister  and  Eva  would  yet  see  themselves  in  trouble  by 
their  fine  fancies  and  sentimental  benevolence. 


AUNT  MARIA  ENDEAVORS  TO  SET  MATTERS  RIGHT   229 

"Well,  sister,"  she  said,  rising  and  drawing  her  cash 
mere  shawl  in  graceful  folds  round  her  handsome  shoulders, 
"I  thought  I  should  come  to  you  first,  as  you  really  are  the 
most  proper  person  to  talk  to  Eva;  but  if  you  should 
neglect  your  duty,  there  is  no  reason  why  I  should  neglect 
mine. 

"I  hear  of  a  very  nice,  capable  girl  that  has  lived  five 
years  with  the  Willises,  who  has  had  permission  to  adver 
tise  from  the  house,  and  I  am  going  to  have  an  interview 
with  her,  and  engage  her  provisionally,  so  that,  if  Eva  has 
a  mind  to  listen  to  reason,  there  may  be  a  way  for  her  to 
supply  Mary's  place  at  once.  I  've  made  up  my  mind 
that,  on  the  whole,  it's  best  Mary  should  go,"  she  added 
reflectively,  as  if  she  were  the  mistress  of  Eva's  house  and 
person. 

"I'm  sorry  to  have  you  take  so  much  trouble,  Maria; 
I  'm  sure  it  won't  do  any  good." 

"Did  you  ever  know  me  to  shrink  from  any  trouble  or 
care  or  responsibility  by  which  I  could  serve  you  and  your 
children,  Nelly?  I  may  not  be  appreciated  —  I  don't 
expect  it  —  but  I  shall  not  swerve  from  my  duty  to  you ; 
at  any  rate,  it 's  my  duty  to  leave  no  stone  unturned,  and 
so  I  shall  start  out  at  once  for  the  Willises.  They  are 
going  to  Europe  for  a  year  or  two,  and  want  to  find  good 
places  for  their  servants." 

And  so  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel,  being  a  little  frightened  at 
the  suggestions  of  Aunt  Maria,  began  to  think  with  herself 
that  perhaps  she  had  been  too  yielding,  and  made  herself 
very  uncomfortable  in  reflecting  on  positive  evils  that 
might  come  on  Eva.  She  watched  her  sister's  stately, 
positive,  determined  figure  as  she  went  down  the  stairs 
with  the  decision  of  a  general,  gave  a  weak  sigh,  wished 
that  she  had  not  come,  and,  on  the  whole,  concluded  to 
resume  her  story  where  she  had  left  off  at  Aunt  Maria's 
entrance. 


CHAPTER   XXVI 

SHE    STOOD    OUTSIDE    THE    GATE 

THE  trial  of  human  life  would  be  a  much  simpler  and 
easier  thing  to  meet  if  the  lines  of  right  and  wrong  were 
always  perfectly  definite.  We  are  happy  so  far  to  believe 
in  our  kind  as  to  think  that  there  are  vast  multitudes  who, 
if  they  only  knew  exactly  what  was  right  and  proper  to  be 
done,  would  do  it  at  all  hazards. 

But  what  is  right  for  me,  in  these  particular  circum 
stances  1  —  in  that  question,  as  it  constantly  rises,  lies  the 
great  stress  of  the  trial  of  life.  We  have,  for  our  guidance, 
a  Book  of  most  high  and  unworldly  maxims  and  directions, 
and  the  life  of  a  Leader  so  exalted  above  all  the  ordinary 
conceptions  and  maxims  of  this  world  that  a  genuine  effort 
to  be  a  Christian,  after  the  pattern  and  directions  of  Christ, 
at  once  brings  us  face  to  face  with  daily  practical  inquiries 
of  the  most  perplexing  nature. 

Our  friend,  Mrs.  Maria  Wouvermans,  was  the  very  type 
and  impersonation  of  this  world's  wisdom  of  the  ordinary 
level.  The  great  object  of  life  being  to  insure  ease,  com 
fort,  and  freedom  from  annoyance  to  one's  self  and  one's 
family,  her  views  of  duty  were  all  conveniently  arranged 
along  this  line.  In  her  view,  it  was  the  first  duty  of  every 
good  housekeeper  to  look  ahead  and  avoid  every  occasion 
whence  might  arise  a  possible  inconvenience  or  embarrass 
ment.  It  was  nobody's  duty,  in  her  opinion,  to  have  any 
trouble,  if  it  could  be  avoided,  or  to  risk  having  any. 
There  were,  of  course,  duties  to  the  poor,  which  she  settled 
for  by  a  regular  annual  subscription  to  some  well-recom- 


SHE   STOOD   OUTSIDE   THE   GATE  231 

mended  board  of  charity  in  her  most  respectable  church. 
That  done,  she  regarded  herself  as  clear  for  action,  and 
bound  to  shake  off  in  detail  any  troublesome  or  embarrass 
ing  person  that  threatened  to  be  a  burden  to  her,  or  to 
those  of  her  family  that  she  felt  responsible  for. 

On  the  other  hand,  Eva  was  possessed  by  an  earnest 
desire  to  make  her  religious  profession  mean  something 
adequate  to  those  startling  and  constantly  recurring  phrases 
in  the  Bible  and  the  Church  service  which  spoke  of  the 
Christian  as  a  being  of  a  higher  order,  led  by  another 
Spirit,  and  living  a  higher  life  than  that  of  the  world  in 
general.  Nothing  is  more  trying  to  an  ingenuous  mind 
than  the  conviction  of  anything  like  a  sham  and  a  pretense 
in  its  daily  life. 

Mr.  St.  John  had  lately  been  preaching  a  series  of  ser 
mons  on  the  history  and  customs  of  the  primitive  Church, 
in  hearing  which  the  conviction  often  forced  itself  on  her 
mind  that  it  was  the  unworldly  life  of  the  first  Christians 
which  gave  victorious  power  to  the  faith.  She  was  inti 
mately  associated  with  people  who  seemed  to  her  to  live 
practically  on  the  same  plan.  Here  was  Sibyl  Selwyn, 
whose  whole  life  was  an  exalted  mission  of  religious  devo 
tion;  there  was  her  neighbor  Ruth  Baxter,  associated  as  a 
lay  sister  with  the  work  of  her  more  gifted  friend.  Here 
were  the  Sisters  of  St.  Barnabas,  lovely,  cultivated  women 
who  had  renounced  all  selfish  ends  and  occupations  in  life, 
to  give  themselves  to  the  work  of  comforting  the  sorrowful 
and  saving  the  lost.  Such  people,  she  thought,  fully  an 
swered  to  the  terms  in  which  Christians  were  spoken  of  in 
the  Bible.  But  could  she,  if  she  lived  only  to  brighten 
one  little  spot  of  her  own,  if  she  shut  out  of  its  charmed 
circle  all  sight  or  feeling  of  the  suffering  and  sorrow  of  the 
world  around  her,  and  made  her  own  home  a  little  paradise 
of  ease  and  forgetfulness,  could  she  be  living  a  Christian 
life? 


232  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

When,  therefore,  she  heard  from  the  poor  mother  under 
her  roof  the  tale  of  her  secretly  kept  shames,  sorrows,  and 
struggles  for  the  daughter  whose  fate  had  filled  her  with 
misery,  she  accepted  with  a  large-hearted  inconsiderateness 
a  mission  of  love  towards  the  wanderer. 

She  carried  it  to  her  husband;  and,  like  two  kind- 
hearted,  generous-minded  young  people,  they  resolved  at 
once  to  make  their  home  sacred  by  bringing  into  it  this 
work  of  charity. 

Now,  this  work  would  be  far  easier  in  most  cases  if  the 
sinner  sought  to  be  saved  would  step  forthwith  right  across 
the  line,  and  behave  henceforth  like  a  saint.  But  unhap 
pily  that  is  not  to  be  expected.  Certain  it  was,  that  Mag 
gie,  with  her  great  black  eyes  and  her  wavy  black  hair, 
was  no  saint.  A  petted,  indulged  child,  with  a  strong, 
ungovernable  nature,  she  had  been  whirled  hither  and 
thither  in  the  tides  of  passion,  and  now  felt  less  repentance 
for  sin  than  indignation  at  her  own  wrongs.  It  might  have 
been  held  a  hopeful  symptom  that  Maggie  had,  at  least,  so 
much  real  truthfulness  in  her  as  not  to  profess  what  she 
did  not  feel. 

It  was  a  fact  that  the  constant  hymns  and  prayers  and 
services  of  the  pious  Sisters  wearied  her.  They  were  too 
high  for  her.  The  calm,  refined  spirituality  of  these  ex 
alted  natures  was  too  far  above  her,  and  she  joined  their 
services  at  best  with  a  patient  acquiescence,  feeling  the 
while  how  sinful  she  must  be  to  be  so  bored  by  them. 

But  for  Eva  she  had  a  sort  of  wondering,  passionate 
admiration.  When  she  fluttered  into  her  sick-room,  with 
all  her  usual  little  graceful  array  of  ribbons  and  fanciful 
ornament,  Maggie's  dull  eye  would  brighten,  and  she 
looked  after  her  with  delighted  wonder.  When  she  spoke 
to  her  tenderly,  smoothed  her  pillow,  put  cologne  on  her 
lace  handkerchief  and  laid  it  on  her  brow,  poor  Maggie 
felt  awed  and  flattered  by  the  attention,  far  more,  it  is  to 


SHE   STOOD   OUTSIDE   THE   GATE  233 

be  feared,  than  if  somebody  more  resembling  the  tradi 
tional  angel  had  done  it.  This  lively,  sprightly  little  lady, 
so  graceful,  so  pretty  in  all  her  motions  and  in  all  her 
belongings,  seemed  to  poor  worldly  Maggie  much  more 
nearly  what  she  would  like  an  angel  to  be,  in  any  world 
where  she  would  have  to  live  with  them. 

The  Sisters,  with  their  black  robes,  their  white  caps, 
and  their  solemn  prayers,  seemed  to  her  so  awfully  good 
that  their  presence  chilled  her.  She  felt  more  subdued, 
but  more  sinful  and  more  hopeless  with  them  than  ever. 
In  short,  poor  Maggie  was  yet  a  creature  of  this  world,  and 
of  sense,  and  the  spiritual  world  to  her  was  only  one  dark, 
confused  blur,  rather  more  appalling  than  attractive.  A 
life  like  that  of  the  Sisters,  given  to  prayer  and  meditation 
and  good  works,  was  too  high  a  rest  for  a  soul  growing  so 
near  the  ground  and  with  so  few  tendrils  to  climb  by. 
Maggie  could  conceive  of  nothing  more  dreary.  To  her, 
it  seemed  like  being  always  thinking  of  her  sins;  and  that 
topic  was  no  more  agreeable  a  subject  of  meditation  to 
Maggie  than  it  is  to  any  of  us.  Many  people  seem  to  feel 
that  the  only  way  of  return  for  those  who  have  wandered 
from  the  paths  of  virtue  is  the  most  immediate  and  utter 
self-abasement.  There  must  be  no  effort  at  self -justifica 
tion,  no  excusing  one's  self,  no  plea  for  abatement  of  con 
demnation.  But  let  us  Christians  who  have  never  fallen, 
in  the  grosser  sense,  ask  ourselves  if,  with  regard  to  our 
own  particular  sins  and  failings,  we  hold  the  same  strict 
line  of  reckoning.  Do  we  come  down  upon  ourselves  for 
our  ill  temper,  for  our  selfishness,  for  our  pride,  and  other 
respectable  sins,  as  we  ask  the  poor  girl  to  do  who  has  been 
led  astray  from  virtue  ? 

Let  us  look  back  and  remember  how  the  Master  once 
coupled  an  immaculate  Pharisee  and  a  fallen  woman  in  one 
sentence  as  two  debtors,  both  owing  a  sum  to  a  creditor,  and 
both  having  nothing  to  pay,  —  both  freely  forgiven  by  infi- 


234  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

nite  clemency.  It  is  a  summing  up  of  the  case  that  is  too 
often  forgotten. 

Eva's  natural  tact  and  delicacy  stood  her  in  stead  in  her 
dealings  with  Maggie,  and  made  her  touch  upon  the  wounds 
of  the  latter  more  endurable  than  any  other.  Without 
reproof  for  the  past,  she  expressed  hope  for  the  future. 

"You  shall  come  and  stay  with  your  mother  at  my 
house,  Maggie,"  she  said  cheerfully,  "and  we  will  make 
you  useful.  The  fact  is,  your  mother  needs  you;  she  is 
not  so  strong  as  she  was,  and  you  could  save  her  a  great 
many  steps." 

Now,  Maggie  still  had  skillful  hands  and  a  good  many 
available  worldly  capacities.  The  very  love  of  finery  and 
of  fine  living  which  had  once  helped  to  entrap  her  now 
came  in  play  for  her  salvation.  Something  definite  to  do 
is,  in  some  crises,  a  far  better  medicine  for  a  sick  soul  than 
any  amount  of  meditation  and  prayer.  One  step  fairly 
taken  in  a  right  direction  goes  farther  than  any  amount  of 
agonized  back-looking. 

In  a  few  days  Maggie  made  for  herself  in  Eva's  family 
a  place  in  which  she  could  feel  herself  to  be  of  service. 
She  took  charge  of  Eva's  wardrobe,  and  was  zealous  and 
efficient  in  ripping,  altering,  and  adapting  articles  for  the 
adornment  of  her  pretty  mistress;  and  Eva  never  failed  to 
praise  and  encourage  her  for  every  right  thing  she  did,  and 
never  by  word  or  look  reminded  her  of  the  past. 

Eva  did  not  preach  to  Maggie;  but  sometimes,  sitting 
at  her  piano  while  she  sat  sewing  in  an  adjoining  room, 
she  played  and  sung  some  of  those  little  melodies  which 
Sunday-schools  have  scattered  as  a  sort  of  popular  ballad 
literature.  Words  of  piety,  allied  to  a  catching  tune,  are 
like  seeds  with  wings  —  they  float  out  in  the  air  and  drop  in 
odd  corners  of  the  heart,  to  spring  up  in  good  purposes. 

One  of  these  little  ballads  reminded  Eva  of  the  night 
she  first  saw  Maggie  lingering  in  the  street  by  her  house :  — 


SHE   STOOD  OUTSIDE   THE   GATE  235 

"  I  stood  outside  the  gate, 

A  poor  wayfaring  child; 
Within  my  heart  there  beat 

A  tempest  tierce  and  wild. 
A  fear  oppressed  my  soul 

That  I  might  be  too  late; 
And,  oh,  I  trembled  sore 

And  prayed  —  outside  the  gate. 

"  « Mercy,'  I  loudly  cried, 

'  Oh,  give  me  rest  from  sin  ! ' 
*  I  will,'  a  voice  replied, 
And  Mercy  let  me  in. 
She  bound  my  bleeding  -wounds 

And  carried  all  my  sin  ; 

She  eased  my  burdened  soul, 

Then  Jesus  took  me  in. 

"In  Mercy's  guise  I  knew 

The  Saviour  long  abused, 
Who  oft  had  sought  my  heart, 

And  oft  had  been  refused. 
Oh,  what  a  blest  return 

For  ignorance  and  sin  ! 
I  stood  outside  the  gate 

And  Jesus  let  me  in." 

After  a  few  days,  Eva  heard  Maggie  humming  this  tune 
over  her  work.  "There,"  she  said  to  herself,  "the  good 
angels  are  near  her!  I  don't  know  what  to  say  to  her, 
but  they  do." 

In  fact,  Eva  had  that  delicacy  and  self-distrust  in  regard 
to  any  direct  and  personal  appeal  to  Maggie  which  is  the 
natural  attendant  of  personal  refinement.  She  was  little 
versed  in  any  ordinary  religious  phraseology,  such  as  very 
well-meaning  persons  often  so  freely  deal  in.  Her  own 
religious  experiences,  fervent  and  sincere  though  they  were, 
never  came  out  in  any  accredited  set  of  phrases;  nor  had 
she  any  store  of  cut-and-dried  pious  talk  laid  by,  to  be 
used  for  inferiors  whom  she  was  called  to  admonish.  But 
she  had  stores  of  kind  artifices  to  keep  Maggie  usefully  em 
ployed,  to  give  her  a  sense  that  she  was  trusted  in  the  family, 
to  encourage  hope  that  there  was  a  better  future  before  her. 

Maggie's  mother,  fond  and  loving  as  she  was,  seconded 


236  WE  AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

these  tactics  of  her  mistress  but  indifferently.  Mary  had 
the  stern  pride  of  chastity  which  distinguishes  the  women 
of  the  old  country,  and  which  keeps  most  of  the  Irish  girls 
who  are  thrown  unprotected  on  our  shores  superior  to 
temptation. 

Mary  keenly  felt  that  Maggie  had  disgraced  her,  and  as 
health  returned  and  she  no  longer  trembled  for  her  life, 
she  seemed  called  upon  to  keep  her  daughter's  sin  ever 
before  her.  Her  past  bad  conduct  and  the  lenity  of  her 
young  mistress,  her  treating  her  so  much  better  than  she 
had  any  reason  to  expect,  were  topics  on  which  Mary  took 
every  occasion  to  enlarge  in  private,  leading  to  passionate 
altercations  between  herself  and  her  daughter,  in  which 
the  child  broke  over  all  bounds  of  goodness  and  showed 
the  very  worst  aspects  of  her  nature.  Nothing  can  be 
more  miserable,  more  pitiable,  than  these  stormy  passages 
between  wayward  children  and  honest,  good-hearted  mo 
thers,  who  love  them  to  the  death,  and  yet  do  not  know 
how  to  handle  them,  sensitive  and  sore  with  moral  wounds. 
Many  a  time  poor  Mary  went  to  sleep  with  a  wet  pillow, 
while  Maggie,  sullen  and  hard-hearted,  lay  with  her  great 
black  eyes  wide  open,  obdurate  and  silent,  yet  in  her  secret 
heart  longing  to  make  it  right  with  her  mother.  Often, 
after  such  a  passage,  she  would  revolve  the  line  of  the 

hymn  — 

"  I  stood  outside  the  gate." 

It  seemed  to  her  that  that  gate  was  her  mother's  heart, 
and  that  she  stood  outside  of  it;  and  yet  all  the  while  the 
poor  mother  would  have  died  for  her.  Eva  could  not  at 
first  account  for  the  sullen  and  gloomy  moods  which  came 
upon  Maggie,  when  she  would  go  about  the  house  with 
lowering  brows,  and  all  her  bright,  cheerful  ways  and 
devices  could  bring  no  smile  upon  her  face. 

"  What  is  the  matter  with  Maggie  1 "  she  would  say  to 
Mary. 


SHE   STOOD   OUTSIDE   THE   GATE  237 

"Oh,  nothing,  ma'am,  only  she's  bad;  she's  got  to  be 
brought  under,  and  brought  down,  — that  Js  what  she  has." 

"  Mary,  I  think  you  had  better  not  talk  to  Maggie  about 
her  past  faults.  She  knows  she  has  been  wrong,  and  the 
best  way  is  to  let  her  get  quietly  into  the  right  way.  We 
must  n't  keep  throwing  up  the  past  to  her.  When  we  do 
wrong,  we  don't  like  to  have  people  keep  putting  us  in 
mind  of  it." 

"You're  jest  an  angel,  Miss  Eva,  and  it  isn't  many 
ladies  that  would  do  as  you  do.  You  're  too  good  to  her 
entirely.  She  ought  to  be  made  sensible  of  it." 

"Well,  Mary,  the  best  way  to  make  her  sensible  and 
bring  her  to  repentance  is  to  treat  her  kindly  and  never 
bring  up  the  past.  Don't  you  see  it  does  no  good,  Mary  ? 
It  only  makes  her  sullen,  and  gloomy,  and  unhappy,  so 
that  I  can't  get  anything  out  of  her.  Now  please,  Mary, 
just  keep  quiet,  and  let  me  manage  Maggie." 

And  then  Mary  would  promise,  and  Eva  would  smooth 
matters  over,  and  affairs  would  go  for  a  day  or  two  har 
moniously.  But  there  was  another  authority  in  Mary's 
family,  as  in  almost  every  Irish  household,  —  a  man  who 
felt  called  to  have  a  say  and  give  a  sentence. 

Mary  had  an  elder  brother,  Mike  McArtney,  who  had 
established  himself  in  a  grocery  business  a  little  out  of  the 
city,  and  who  felt  himself  to  stand  in  position  of  head  of 
the  family  to  Mary  and  her  children.  The  absolute  and 
entire  reverence  and  deference  with  which  Irish  women 
look  up  to  the  men  of  their  kindred  is  something  in  direct 
contrast  to  the  demeanor  of  American  women.  The  male 
sex,  if  repulsed  in  other  directions,  certainly  are  fully  jus 
tified  and  glorified  by  the  submissive  daughters  of  Erin. 
Mike  was  the  elder  brother,  under  whose  care  Mary  came 
to  this  country.  He  was  the  adviser  and  director  of  all 
her  affairs.  He  found  her  places;  he  guided  her  in  every 
emergency.  Mike,  of  course,  had  felt  and  bitterly  resented 


238  WE  AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

the  dishonor  brought  on  their  family  by  Maggie's  fall. 
In  his  view,  there  was  danger  that  the  path  of  repentance 
was  being  made  altogether  too  easy  for  her,  and  he  had 
resolved  on  the  first  leisure  Sunday  evening  to  come  to  the 
house  and  execute  a  thorough  work  of  judgment  on  Mag 
gie,  setting  her  sin  in  order  before  her,  and,  in  general, 
bearing  down  on  her  in  such  a  way  as  to  bring  her  to  the 
dust  and  make  her  feel  it  the  greatest  possible  mercy  and 
favor  that  any  of  her  relations  should  speak  to  her. 

So,  after  Eva  had  hushed  the  mother  and  tranquilized 
the  girl,  and  there  had  been  two  or  three  days  of  serenity, 
came  Sunday  evening  and  Uncle  Mike.  The  result  was, 
as  might  have  been  expected,  a  loud  and  noisy  altercation. 
Maggie  was  perfectly  infuriated,  and  talked  like  one  pos 
sessed  of  a  demon;  using,  alas!  language  with  which  her 
sinful  life  had  made  her  only  too  familiar,  and  which  went 
far  to  justify  the  rebukes  which  were  heaped  upon  her. 

In  his  anger  at  such  contumacious  conduct  Uncle  Mike 
took  full  advantage  of  the  situation,  and  told  Maggie  that 
she  was  a  disgrace  to  her  mother  and  her  relations  —  a  dis 
grace  to  any  honest  house  —  and  that  he  wondered  that 
decent  gentle-folks  would  have  her  under  their  roof.  In 
short,  in  one  hour,  two  of  Maggie's  best  friends  —  the 
mother  that  loved  her  as  her  life  and  the  uncle  that  had 
been  as  a  father  to  her  —  contrived  utterly  to  sweep  away 
and  destroy  all  those  delicate  cords  and  filaments  which 
the  hands  of  good  angels  had  been  fastening  to  her  heart, 
to  draw  her  heavenward. 

When  a  young  tree  is  put  in  new  ground,  its  roots  put 
forth  fibres  delicate  as  hairs,  but  in  which  is  all  the  vitality 
of  a  new  phase  of  existence.  To  tear  up  those  roots  and 
wrench  off  those  fibres  is  too  often  the  destructive  work  of 
well-intending  friends ;  it  is  done  too  often  by  those  who 
would,  if  need  be,  give  their  very  heart's  blood  for  the 
welfare  they  imperil.  Such  is  life  as  we  find  it. 


CHAPTEE   XXVII 

ROUGH  HANDLING  OF  SORE  NERVES 

THE  same  Sunday  evening  that  Mary  and  her  brother 
Mike  had  devoted  to  the  disciplinary  processes  with  Mag 
gie  had  been  spent  by  Eva  and  her  husband  at  her  father's 
house. 

Mrs.  Van  Arsdel,  to  say  the  truth,  had  been  somewhat 
shaken  and  disturbed  by  Aunt  Maria's  suggestions;  and 
she  took  early  occasion  to  draw  Eva  aside,  and  make  many 
doubtful  inquiries  and  utter  many  admonitory  cautions 
with  regard  to  the  part  she  had  taken  for  Maggie. 

"Of  course,  dear,  it 's  very  kind  in  you,"  said  Mrs.  Van 
Arsdel;  "but  your  aunt  thinks  it  isn't  quite  prudent; 
and,  come  to  think  it  over,  Eva,  I  'm  afraid  it  may  get  you 
into  trouble.  Everything  is  going  on  so  well  in  your  house, 
I  don't  want  you  to  have  anything  disagreeable,  you  know." 

"Well,  after  all,  mother,  how  can  I  be  a  Christian,  or 
anything  like  a  Christian,  if  I  am  never  willing  to  take 
any  trouble?  If  you  heard  the  preaching  we  do  every 
Sunday,  you  would  feel  so." 

"I  don't  doubt  that  Mr.  St.  John  is  a  good  preacher," 
said  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel;  "but  then  I  never  could  go  so  far, 
you  know ;  and  your  aunt  is  almost  crazy  now  because  the 
girls  go  up  there  and  don't  sit  in  our  pew  in  church.  She 
was  here  yesterday,  and  talked  very  strongly  about  your 
taking  Maggie.  She  really  made  me  quite  uncomfortable. " 

"  Well,  I  should  like  to  knowr  what  concern  it  is  of  Aunt 
Maria's!"  said  Eva.  "It 's  a  matter  in  which  Harry  and 
I  must  follow  our  own  judgment  and  conscience;  Harry 


240  WE   AND   OUE   NEIGHBORS 

thinks  we  are  doing  right,  and  I  suspect  Harry  knows  what 
is  best  to  do  as  well  as  Aunt  Maria." 

"Well,  certainly,  Eva,  I  must  say  it's  an  unusual  sort 
of  thing  to  do.  I  know  your  motives  are  all  right  and 
lovely,  and  I  stood  up  for  you  with  your  aunt.  I  didn't 
give  in  to  her  a  bit;  and  yet,  all  the  while,  I  couldn't 
help  thinking  that  maybe  she  was  right  and  that  maybe 
your  good-heartedness  would  get  you  into  difficulty." 

"Well,  suppose  it  does;  what  then?  Am  I  never  to 
have  any  trouble  for  the  sake  of  helping  anybody  ?  I  am 
not  one  of  the  very  good  women  with  missions,  like  Sibyl 
Selwyn,  and  can't  do  good  that  way;  and  I 'm  not  enter 
prising  and  courageous,  like  sister  Ida,  to  make  new  pro 
fessions  for  women:  but  here  is  a  case  of  a  poor  woman 
right  under  my  own  roof  who  is  perplexed  and  suffering, 
and  if  I  can  help  her  carry  her  load,  ought  I  not  to  do  it, 
even  if  it  makes  me  a  good  deal  of  trouble  ? " 

"Well,  yes,  I  don't  know  but  you  ought,"  said  Mrs. 
Van  Arsdel,  who  was  always  convinced  by  the  last  speaker. 

"You  see,"  continued  Eva,  "the  priest  and  the  Levite 
who  passed  by  on  the  other  side  when  a  man  lay  wounded 
were  just  of  Aunt  Maria's  mind.  They  didn't  want  trou 
ble,  and  if  they  undertook  to  do  anything  for  him  they 
would  have  a  good  deal ;  so  they  left  him.  And  if  I  turn 
my  back  on  Mary  and  Maggie  I  shall  be  doing  pretty  much 
the  same  thing." 

"Well,  if  you  only  are  sure  of  succeeding.  But  girls 
that  have  fallen  into  bad  ways  are  such  dangerous  crea 
tures;  perhaps  you  can't  do  her  any  good,  and  will  only 
get  yourself  into  trouble." 

"Well,  if  I  fail,  why  then  I  shall  fail.  But  I  think 
it 's  better  to  try  and  fail  in  doing  our  part  for  others  than 
never  to  try  at  all." 

"Well,  I  suppose  you  are  right,  Eva;  and  after  all  I  'm 
sorry  for  poor  Mary.  She  had  a  hard  time  with  her  mar- 


ROUGH  HANDLING  OF  SORE  NERVES      241 

riage  all  round;  and  I  suppose  it 's  no  wonder  Maggie  went 
astray.  Mary  couldn't  control  her;  and  handsome  girls  in 
that  walk  of  life  are  so  tempted.  How  does  she  get  on  1 " 

"Oh,  nicely,  for  the  most  part.  She  seems  to  have  a 
sort  of  adoration  for  me.  I  can  say  or  do  anything  with 
her,  and  she  really  is  very  handy  and  skillful  with  her 
needle;  she  has  ripped  up  and  made  over  an  old  dress  for 
me  so  you  'd  be  quite  astonished  to  see  it,  and  seems  really 
pleased  and  interested  to  have  something  to  do.  If  only 
her  mother  will  let  her  alone,  and  not  keep  nagging  her, 
and  bringing  up  old  offenses.  Mary  is  so  eager  to  make 
her  do  right  that  she  is  n't  judicious;  she  doesn't  realize 
how  sensitive  and  sore  people  are  that  know  they  have 
been  wrong.  Maggie  is  a  proud  girl." 

"Oh,  well,  she's  no  business  to  be  proud,"  said  Mrs. 
Van  Arsdel.  "I  'm  sure  she  ought  to  be  humbled  in  the 
very  dust;  that 's  the  least  one  should  expect." 

"And  so  ought  we  all,"  said  Eva,  "but  we  are  not,  and 
she  is  n't.  She  makes  excuses  for  herself,  and  feels  as  if 
she  had  been  abused  and  hardly  treated,  just  as  most  of  us 
do  when  we  go  wrong,  and  I  tell  Mary  not  to  talk  to  her 
about  the  past,  but  just  quietly  let  her  do  better  in  future; 
but  it 's  very  hard  to  get  her  to  feel  that  Maggie  ought  not 
to  be  willing  to  be  lectured  and  preached  to  from  morning 
till  night." 

"Your  Aunt  Maria,  no  doubt,  will  come  up  and  free 
her  mind  to  you  about  this  affair,"  said  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel. 
"She  has  a  scheme  in  her  head  of  getting  another  girl  for 
you  in  Mary's  place.  The  Willises  are  going  abroad  for 
three  years  and  have  given  their  servants  leave  to  adver 
tise  from  the  house;  and  your  aunt  left  me  Saturday,  say 
ing  she  was  going  up  there  to  ascertain  all  about  them  and 
get  you  the  refusal  of  one  of  them,  provided  you  wished  to 
get  rid  of  Mary." 

"  Get  rid  of  Mary !     I  think  I  see  myself  turning  upon 


242  WE  AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

my  good  Mary  that  loves  me  as  she  does  her  life,  and 
scheming  to  get  her  out  of  my  house  because  she 's  in 
trouble !  No,  indeed ;  Mary  has  been  true  and  faithful  to 
me,  and  I  will  be  a  true  and  faithful  friend  to  her.  What 
could  I  do  with  one  of  the  Willises'  servants,  with  their 
airs  and  their  graces  ?  Would  they  come  to  a  little  house 
like  mine,  and  take  all  departments  in  turn,  and  do  for  me 
as  if  they  were  doing  for  themselves,  as  Mary  does  1 " 

"Just  so,"  said  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel.  "That's  just  what 
I  told  Maria.  I  told  her  that  you  never  would  consent. 
But  you  know  how  it  is  with  her  when  she  gets  an  idea 
in  her  head,  there  's  no  turning  her.  You  might  as  well 
talk  to  a  steam  -  engine.  She  walked  off  downstairs 
straight  as  a  ramrod,  and  took  the  omnibus  for  the  Willises, 
in  spite  of  all  I  could  say;  and,  sure  as  the  world,  she  '11 
be  up  to  talk  with  you  about  it.  She  insisted  that  it  was 
my  duty  to  interfere;  and  I  told  her  you  had  a  right  to 
manage  your  matters  in  your  own  way.  Then  she  said  if 
I  didn't  do  my  duty  by  you,  she  should." 

"Well,  you  have  done  your  duty,  mamma  dear,"  said 
Eva,  kissing  her  mother.  "I'll  bear  witness  to  that,  and 
it  isn't  your  fault  if  I  am  not  wrarned.  But  you,  dear 
little  mother,  have  sense  to  let  your  children  sail  their  own 
boat  their  own  way,  without. interfering." 

"Well,  I  think  your  ways  generally  turn  out  the  best 
ways,  Eva,"  said  her  mother.  "And  I  think  Aunt  Maria 
herself  conies  into  them  finally.  She  is  proud  as  a  peacock 
of  your  receptions,  and  takes  every  occasion  to  tell  people 
what  charming,  delightful  evenings  you  have;  and  she 
praises  your  house  and  your  housekeeping  and  you  to  every 
body,  so  you  may  put  up  with  a  little  bother  now  and 
then." 

"Oh,  I'll  manage  Aunt  Maria,  never  you  fear,"  said 
Eva,  as  she  rose  confidently  and  took  her  husband  from  a 
discussion  with  Mr.  Van  Arsdel. 


ROUGH    HANDLING   OF   SORE    NERVES  243 

"Come,  Harry,  it's  nine  o'clock,  and  we  have  a  long 
walk  yet  to  get  home." 

It  was  brisk,  clear  winter  moonlight  in  the  streets  as 
Harry  and  Eva  took  their  way  homeward  —  she  the  while 
relieving  her  mind  by  reciting  her  mother's  conversation. 

"Don't  it  seem  strange,"  she  said,  "how  the  minute 
one  actually  tries  to  do  some  real  Christian  work  everything 
goes  against  one  ?  " 

"Yes,"  said  Harry;  "the  world  isn't  made  for  the  un 
fortunate  or  unsuccessful.  In  general,  the  instinct  of 
society  is  the  same  among  men  as  among  animals  —  any 
thing  sickly  or  maimed  is  to  be  fought  off  and  got  rid  of. 
If  there  is  a  sick  bird,  all  the  rest  fly  at  it  and  peck  it  to 
death.  So  in  the  world,  when  man  or  woman  doesn't 
keep  step  with  respectable  people,  the  first  idea  is  to  get 
them  out  of  the  way.  We  can't  exactly  kill  them,  but 
we  can  wash  our  hands  of  them.  Saving  souls  is  no  part 
of  the  world's  work  —  it  interferes  with  its  steady  busi 
ness;  it  takes  unworldly  people  to  do  that." 

"And  when  one  begins,"  said  Eva,  "shrewd,  sensible 
folks,  like  Aunt  Maria,  blame  us ;  and  little,  tender-hearted 
folks,  like  mamma,  think  it 's  almost  a  pity  we  should  try, 
and  that  we  had  better  leave  it  to  somebody  else;  and 
then  the  very  people  we  are  trying  to  do  for  are  really 
troublesome  and  hard  to  manage  —  like  poor  Maggie.  She 
is  truly  a  very  hard  person  to  get  along  with,  and  her 
mother  is  injudicious,  and  makes  it  harder;  but  yet,  it 
really  does  seem  to  be  our  work  to  help  take  care  of  her. 
Now,  is  n't  it?" 

"Well,  then,  darling,  you  may  comfort  your  heart  with 
one  thought:  when  you  are  doing  for  pure  Christian  mo 
tives  a  thing  that  makes  you  a  great  deal  of  trouble,  and 
gets  you  no  applause,  you  are  trying  to  live  just  that  un 
worldly  life  that  the  first  Christians  did.  They  were  called 
a  peculiar  people,  and  whoever  acts  in  the  same  spirit  now- 


244  WE   AND    OUR    NEIGHBORS 

adays  will  be  called  the  same,  I  think  it  is  the  very  high 
est  wisdom  to  do  as  you  are  doing;  but  it  isn't  the  wisdom 
of  this  world.  It 's  the  kind  of  thing  that  Mr.  St.  John 
is  sacrificing  his  whole  life  to;  it  is  what  Sibyl  Seiwyn  is 
doing  all  the  time,  and  your  little  neighbor  Ruth  is  helping 
in.  We  can  at  least  try  to  do  a  little.  We  are  inexpe 
rienced,  it  may  be  that  we  shall  not  succeed,  it  may  be  that 
the  girl  is  past  saving;  but  it's  worth  while  to  try,  and 
try  our  very  best." 

Harry  was  saying  this  just  as  he  put  his  latch-key  into 
the  door  of  his  house. 

It  was  suddenly  opened  from  within,  and  Maggie  stood 
before  them  with  her  bonnet  and  shawl  on,  ready  to  pass 
out.  There  was  a  hard,  sharp,  desperate  expression  in  her 
face  as  she  pressed  forward  to  pass  them. 

"Maggie,  child,"  said  Eva,  laying  hold  of  her  arm, 
"  where  are  you  going  ?  " 

"Away  —  anywhere  —  I  don't  care  where,"  said  Mag 
gie  fiercely,  trying  to  pull  away. 

"But  you  mustn't,"  said  Eva,  laying  hold  of  her. 

"Maggie,"  said  Harry,  stepping  up  to  her  and  speaking 
in  that  calm,  steady  voice  which  controls  passionate  people, 
"go  into  the  house  immediately  with  Mrs.  Henderson;  she 
will  talk  with  you." 

Maggie  turned,  and  sullenly  followed  Eva  into  a  little 
sewing-room  adjoining  the  parlor,  where  she  had  often  sat 
at  work. 

"Now,  Maggie,"  said  Eva,  "take  off  your  bonnet,  for 
I  'm  not  going  to  have  you  go  into  the  streets  at  this  hour 
of  the  night,  and  sit  down  quietly  here  and  tell  me  all 
about  it.  What  has  happened?  What  is  the  matter? 
You  don't  want  to  distress  your  mother  and  break  her 
heart  ? " 

" She  hates  me,"  said  Maggie.  "  She  says  I  've  disgraced 
her  and  I  disgrace  you,  and  that  it 's  a  disgrace  to  have 


ROUGH   HANDLING   OF   SORE   NERVES  245 

me  here.      She  and  Uncle  Mike  both  said  so,  and  I  said 
I'd  go  off,  then." 

"But  where  could  you  go?  "  said  Eva. 

"Oh,  I  know  places  enough!  They  're  bad,  to  be  sure. 
I  wanted  to  do  better,  so  I  came  away;  but  I  can  go  back 
again. " 

"No,  Maggie,  you  must  never  go  back.  You  must  do 
as  I  tell  you.  Have  I  not  been  a  friend  to  you  ?  " 

"Oh  yes,  yes,  you  have;  but  they  say  I  disgrace  you." 

"  Maggie,  I  don't  think  so.  I  never  said  so.  There  is 
no  need  that  you  should  disgrace  anybody.  I  hope  you  '11 
live  to  be  a  credit  to  your  mother  —  a  credit  to  us  all. 
You  are  young  yet ;  you  have  a  good  many  years  to  live ; 
and  if  you  '11  only  go  on  and  do  the  very  best  you  can  from 
this  time,  you  can  be  a  comfort  to  your  mother  and  be  a 
good  woman.  It 's  never  too  late  to  begin,  Maggie,  and 
I  '11  help  you  now." 

Maggie  sat  still  and  gazed  gloomily  before  her. 

"Come,  now,  I'll  sing  you  some  little  hymns,"  said 
Eva,  going  to  her  piano  and  touching  a  few  chords. 
"You've  got  your  mind  all  disturbed,  and  I'll  sing  to 
you  till  you  are  more  quiet." 

Eva  had  a  sweet  voice,  and  a  light,  dreamy  sort  of  touch 
on  the  piano,  and  she  played  and  sung  with  feeling. 

There  were  truths  in  religion,  higher,  holier,  deeper 
than  she  felt  capable  of  uttering,  which  breathed  them 
selves  in  these  hymns;  and  something  within  her  gave 
voice  and  pathos  to  them. 

The  influence  of  music  over  the  disturbed  nerves  and 
bewildered  moral  sense  of  those  who  have  gone  astray  from 
virtue  is  something  very  remarkable.  All  modern  mis 
sions  more  or  less  recognize  that  it  has  a  power  which  goes 
beyond  anything  that  spoken  words  can  utter,  and  touches 
springs  of  deeper  feeling. 

Eva  sat  playing  a  long  time,  going  from  one  thing  to 


246  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

another;  and  then,  rising,  she  found  Maggie  crying  softly 
by  herself. 

"Come,  now,  Maggie,"  she  said,  "you  are  going  to  be 
a  good  girl,  I  know.  Go  up  and  go  to  bed  now,  and  don't 
forget  your  prayers.  That 's  a  good  girl."  Maggie  yielded 
passively,  and  went  to  her  room. 

Then  Eva  had  another  hour's  talk,  to  persuade  Mary 
that  she  must  not  be  too  exacting  with  Maggie,  and  that 
she  must  for  the  future  avoid  all  such  encounters  with  her. 
Mary  was,  on  the  whole,  glad  to  promise  anything;  for 
she  had  been  thoroughly  alarmed  at  the  altercation  into 
which  their  attempt  at  admonition  had  grown,  and  was 
ready  to  admit  to  Eva  that  Mike  had  been  too  hard  on  her. 
At  all  events,  the  family  honor  had  been  sufficiently  vindi 
cated,  and,  if  Maggie  would  only  behave  herself,  she  was 
ready  to  promise  that  Mike  should  not  be  allowed  to  inter 
fere  in  future.  And  so,  at  last,  Eva  succeeded  in  inducing 
Mary  to  go  to  her  daughter's  room  with  a  reconciling  word 
before  she  went  to  bed,  and  had  the  comfort  of  seeing  the 
naughty  girl  crying  in  her  mother's  arms,  and  the  mother 
petting  and  fondling  her  as  a  mother  should. 

Alas!  it  is  only  in  the  good  old  Book  that  the  father 
sees  the  prodigal  a  great  way  off,  and  runs  and  falls  on  his 
neck  and  kisses  him,  before  he  has  confessed  his  sin  or 
done  any  work  of  repentance.  So  far  does  God's  heavenly 
love  outrun  even  the  love  of  fathers  and  mothers. 

"Well,  I  believe  I've  got  things  straightened  out  at 
last,"  said  Eva,  as  she  came  back  to  Harry;  "and  now,  if 
Mary  will  only  let  me  manage  Maggie,  I  think  I  can  make 
all  go  smooth." 


CHAPTER   XXVIH 

REASON    AND    UNREASON 

THE  next  morning  being  Monday,  Dr.  Campbell  dropped 
in  to  breakfast.  Since  he  and  Eva  had  met  so  often  in 
Maggie's  sick-room,  and  he  had  discussed  the  direction  of 
her  physical  well-being,  he  had  rapidly  grown  in  intimacy 
with  the  Hendersons,  and  the  little  house  had  come  to  be 
regarded  by  him  as  a  sort  of  home.  Consequently,  when 
Eva  sailed  into  her  dining-room,  she  found  him  quietly 
arranging  a  handful  of  cut  flowers  which  he  had  brought  in 
for  the  centre  of  her  breakfast-table. 

"Good-morning,  Mrs.  Henderson,"  he  said  composedly. 
"I  stepped  into  Allen's  greenhouse  on  my  way  up,  to 
bring  in  a  few  flowers.  With  the  mercury  at  zero,  flowers 
are  worth  something." 

"  How  perfectly  lovely  of  you,  Doctor,"  said  she.  "You 
are  too  good." 

"I  don't  say,  however,  that  I  had  not  my  eye  on  a  cup 
of  your  coffee,"  he  replied.  "You  know  I  have  no  faith 
in  disinterested  benevolence." 

"Well,  sit  down  then,  old  fellow,"  said  Harry,  clapping 
him  on  the  shoulder.  "You're  welcome,  flowers  or  no 
flowers. " 

"  How  are  you  all  getting  on  1 "  he  said,  seating  himself. 

"Charmingly,  of  course,"  said  Eva,  from  behind  the 
coffee-pot,  "and  as  the  song  says,  *  the  better  for  seeing 
you. ' ' 

"  And  how  's  my  patient  —  Maggie  ?  " 

"Oh,  she  's  doing  well,  if  only  people  will  let  her  alone; 


248  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

but  her  mother,  and  uncle,  and  relations  will  keep  irritating 
her  with  reproaches.  You  see,  I  had  got  her  in  beautiful 
training,  and  she  was  sewing  for  me  and  making  herself 
very  useful,  when,  Sunday  evening  when  I  was  gone  out, 
her  uncle  came  to  see  her,  and  talked  and  bore  down  upon 
her  so  as  to  completely  upset  all  I  had  done.  I  came 
home  and  found  her  just  going  out  of  the  house,  perfectly 
desperate. " 

"  And  ready  to  go  to  the  devil  straight  off,  I  suppose  ? " 
said  the  doctor.  "His  doors  are  always  open." 

"You  see,"  said  Harry,  "things  seem  to  be  so  arranged 
in  this  world  that  if  man,  woman,  or  child  does  wrong  or 
gets  out  of  the  way,  all  society  is  armed  to  the  teeth  to 
prevent  their  ever  doing  right  again.  Their  own  flesh 
and  blood  pitch  into  them  with  reproaches  and  expostula 
tions,  and  everybody  else  looks  on  them  with  suspicion, 
and  nobody  wants  them  and  nobody  dares  trust  them." 

"Just  so,"  said  Dr.  Campbell,  "the  world  is  an  army  — 
it  can't  stop  for  anything.  '  Wounded  to  the  rear,'  is  the 
word,  and  the  army  must  go  on  and  leave  the  sick  and 
wounded  to  die  or  be  taken  by  the  enemy.  For  my  part, 
I  never  thought  "Napoleon  was  so  much  out  of  the  way 
when  he  recommended  poisoning  the  sick  and  wounded 
that  could  not  be  moved.  I  think  I  should  prefer  to  be 
comfortably  and  decently  poisoned  myself  in  such  a  case. 
The  world  isn't  ripe  yet  for  the  doctrine;  but  I  think  all 
people  who  get  broken  down,  and  don't  keep  step  physi 
cally  and  morally,  had  better  be  killed  at  once.  Then  we 
could  get  on  comfortably,  and  in  a  few  generations  should 
have  a  nice  population." 

"Come,  now,  Doctor,  I'm  not  going  to  have  that  sort 
of  talk,"  said  Eva.  "In  short,  you've  got  to  keep  on  as 
you  have  been  doing  —  working  for  the  wounded  in  the 
rear.  And  now  tell  me  if  I  could  do  a  better  thing  for 
Maggie  than  keep  her  here  in  our  house,  under  my  own 


REASON   AND   UNREASON  2-19 

eye  and  influence,  till  she  gets  quite  strong  and  well,  and 
help  her  to  live  down  the  past  ?  " 

"Well,  that 's  a  sensible  putting  of  the  thing,"  said  Dr. 
Campbell,  "  if  you  will  be  foolish  enough  to  take  the  trou 
ble;  but  I  forewarn  you  that  girls  that  have  been  through 
her  experiences  are  troublesome  to  manage.  Their  nerves 
are  all  in  a  jangle;  they  are  sore  everywhere,  and  the  very 
good  that  is  in  them  is  turned  wrong  side  outward;  and, 
as  you  say,  the  world  will  be  against  you,  in  a  general 
way.  Relations,  as  far  as  ever  I  have  observed,  are  rather 
harder  on  sinners  than  anybody  else  —  especially  on  a 
woman  that  goes  astray ;  and  next  to  them  sensible,  worldly 
wise,  respectable  people  —  people  who  live  to  get  rid  of 
trouble,  and  feel  that  '  bother '  is  the  sum  and  substance  of 
evil.  Now,  taking  up  a  girl  like  Maggie,  you  must  count 
on  that.  Her  relations  will  hinder  all  they  can;  and  the 
more  respectable  they  are,  the  harder  they  will  bear  down 
upon  her.  Your  relations  will  think  you  a  sentimental 
little  fool,  and  do  all  they  can  to  hinder  you.  The  rank 
and  file  of  comfortable,  religious,  church-going  people  will 
call  you  imprudent,  and  only  fanatics,  like  Mr.  St.  John 
and  Sibyl  Selwyn,  will  understand  you  or  stand  by  you; 
and,  to  crown  all,  the  girl  herself  is  as  unreliable  as  the 
wind.  The  evil  done  to  a  woman  in  this  kind  of  life  is 
the  derangement  of  her  whole  nervous  system,  so  that  she 
is  swept  by  floods  of  morbid  influences,  and  liable  to  wild, 
passionate  gusts  of  feeling.  The  cessation  from  this  free 
Bohemian  life,  with  its  strong  excitements,  leaves  them  in 
unnatural  states  of  craving  for  stimulus;  and  when  you 
have  done  all  you  can  for  them,  —  in  a  moment,  off  they 
go.  That 's  the  reason  why  most  prudent  people  prefer 
to  wash  their  hands  of  them,  and  stop  before  they  begin." 

"It 's  all  very  well  to  talk  so,  Doctor,  if  the  case  related 
to  a  stranger;  but  here  is  my  poor,  good  Mary,  who  has 
been  in  our  family  ever  since  I  was  a  little  girl,  and  has 


250  WE   AND  OUR  NEIGHBORS 

always  loved  me  and  been  devoted  to  me  —  shall  I  now 
give  her  the  cold  shoulder  and  not  help  her  in  this  crisis 
of  her  life,  because  I  am  afraid  of  trouble?  Isn't  it  worth 
trouble,  and  a  great  deal  of  trouble,  and  a  great  deal  of 
patience,  to  save  this  daughter  of  hers  from  ruin  ?  I  think 
it  is." 

"I  think  you  and  your  husband  will  do  it,"  said  the 
doctor,  "because  you  are  just  what  you  are;  and  I  shall 
help  you,  because  I  'm  what  I  am;  but,  nevertheless,  I  set 
the  reasonable  side  before  you.  I  think  this  Maggie  is  a 
fine  creature.  There  are,  in  a  confused  way,  the  begin 
nings  of  a  great  deal  that  is  right,  and  even  noble,  in  her ; 
but  nobody  ought  to  begin  with  her  without  taking  account 
of  risks." 

"Well,"  said  Eva,  "you  know  I  am  a  Christian,  and  I 
look  in  the  New  Testament  for  my  principles,  and  there 
I  find  it  plainly  set  down  that  the  Lord  values  one  sinner 
that  is  brought  to  repentance  more  than  ninety  and  nine 
just  persons  that  need  no  repentance;  and  that  he  would 
leave  the  ninety  and  nine  sheep,  and  go  into  the  wilderness 
to  look  up  one  lost  lamb." 

"That  is  the  Christian  religion,  undoubtedly,"  said  Dr. 
Campbell;  "but  there  is  exactly  where  the  Christian  reli 
gion  parts  company  with  worldly  prudence.  The  world 
and  all  its  institutions  are  organized  and  arranged  for  the 
strong,  the  wise,  the  prudent,  and  the  successful.  The 
weak,  the  sick,  the  sinners,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing,  ,are 
to  have  as  much  care  as  they  can  without  interfering  with 
the  healthy  and  strong.  Now,  in  the  good  old  times  of 
English  law,  they  used  to  hang  summarily  anybody  that 
made  trouble  in  society  in  any  way  —  the  woman  who 
stole  a  loaf  of  bread,  and  the  man  who  stole  a  horse,  and 
the  vagrant  who  picked  a  pocket;  then  there  was  no  dis 
cussion  and  no  bother  about  reformation,  such  as  is  coming 
down  upon  our  consciences  nowadays.  Good  old  times 


REASON  AND  UNREASON  251 

those  were,  when  there  wasn't  any  of  this  gush  over  the 
fallen  and  lost;  the  slate  was  wiped  clean  of  all  the  puz 
zling  sums  at  the  yearly  assizes  and  the  account  started 
clear.  Nowadays,  there  is  such  a  bother  about  taking  care 
of  criminals  that  an  honest  man  has  no  decent  chance  of 
comfort. " 

"Well,  Doctor,"  said  Eva,  "if  the  essence  of  Christian 
ity  is  restoration  and  salvation,  I  don't  see  but  your  pro 
fession  is  essentially  a  Christian  one.  You  seek  and  save 
the  lost.  It  is  your  business  by  your  toil  and  labor  to  help 
people  who  have  sinned  against  the  laws  of  Nature  to  get 
them  back  again  to  health;  isn't  it  so?" 

"Well,  yes,  it  is,"  said  the  doctor,  "though  I  find  every 
thing  going  against  me  in  this  direction,  as  much  as  you 
do." 

"But  you  find  mercy  in  Nature,"  said  Harry.  "In  the 
language  of  the  Psalms,  *  There  is  forgiveness  with  her 
that  she  may  be  feared.'  The  first  thing,  after  one  of  her 
laws  has  been  broken,  comes  in  her  effort  to  restore  and 
save;  it  may  be  blind  and  awkward,  but  still  it  points 
toward  life  and  not  death,  and  you  doctors  are  her  minis 
ters  and  priests.  You  bear  the  physical  gospel;  and  we 
Christians  take  the  same  process  to  the  spiritual  realm  that 
lies  just  above  yours,  and  that  has  to  work  through  yours. 
Our  business  in  both  realms  seems  to  be,  by  our  own  labor, 
self-denial,  and  suffering,  to  save  those  who  have  sinned 
against  the  laws  of  their  being. " 

"Well,"  said  the  doctor;  "even  so,  I  go  in  for  saving 
in  my  line  by  an  instinct  apart  from  my  reason,  an  instinct 
as  blind  as  Nature's  when  she  sets  out  to  heal  a  broken 
bone  in  the  right  arm  of  a  scalawag,  who  never  used  his 
arm  for  anything  but  thrashing  his  wife  and  children,  and 
making  himself  a  general  nuisance ;  yet  I  have  been  amazed 
sometimes  to  see  how  kindly  and  patiently  old  Mother 
Nature  will  work  for  such  a  man.  Well,  I  am  something 


252  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

like  her.  I  have  the  blind  instinct  of  healing  in  my  pro 
fession,  and  I  confess  to  sitting  up  all  night,  watching  to 
keep  the  breath  of  life  in  sick  babies  that  I  know  ought  to 
be  dead,  and  had  better  be  dead,  inasmuch  as  there  's  no 
chance  for  them  to  be  even  decent  and  respectable,  if  they 
live;  but  I  can't  let  'em  die,  any  more  than  Nature  can, 
without  a  struggle.  The  fact  is,  reason  is  one  thing  and 
the  human  heart  another ;  and,  as  St.  Paul  says,  '  these 
two  are  contrary  one  to  the  other,  so  that  ye  cannot  do  the 
thing  ye  would.'  You  and  your  husband,  Mrs.  Hender 
son,  have  got  a  good  deal  of  this  troublesome  human  heart 
in  you,  so  that  you  cannot  act  reasonably  any  more  than 
lean." 

"That's  it,  Doctor,"  said  Eva,  with  a  bright,  sudden 
movement  towards  him  and  laying  her  hand  on  his  arm, 
"let 's  not  act  reasonably  —  let 's  act  by  something  higher. 
I  know  there  is  something  higher  —  something  we  dare  to 
do  and  feel  able  to  do  in  our  best  moments.  You  are  a 
Christian  in  heart,  Doctor,  if  not  in  faith." 

"Me?  I'm  the  most  terrible  heretic  in  all  the  conti 
nent.  " 

"But  when  you  sit  up  all  night  with  a  sick  baby  from 
mere  love  of  saving,  you  are  a  Christian;  for,  doesn't 
Christ  say,  '  Inasmuch  as  ye  did  it  unto  the  least  of  these, 
ye  did  it  unto  me '  ?  Christians  are  those  who  have 
Christ's  spirit,  as  I  think,  and  sacrifice  themselves  to  save 
others. " 

"May  the  angels  be  of  your  opinion  when  I  try  the  gate 
hereafter,"  said  the  doctor.  "But1  now,  seriously,  about 
this  Maggie.  I  apprehend  that  you  will  have  trouble  from 
the  fact  that,  having  been  kept  on  stimulants  in  a  rambling, 
loose,  disorderly  life,  she  will  not  be  able  long  to  accommo 
date  herself  to  any  regular  habits.  I  don't  know  how 
much  of  a  craving  for  drink  there  may  be  in  her  case,  but 
it  is  a  usual  complication  of  such  cases.  Such  people  may 


REASON   AND   UXREASOX  253 

go  for  weeks  without  yielding,  and  then  the  furor  conies 
upon  them,  and  away  they  go.  Perhaps  she  may  not  be 
one  of  those  worst  cases;  but,  in  any  event,  the  sudden 
cessation  of  all  the  tumultuous  excitement  she  has  been 
accustomed  to  may  lead  to  a  running  down  of  the  nervous 
system  that  will  make  her  act  unreasonably.  Her  mother, 
and  people  of  her  class,  may  be  relied  on  for  doing  the 
very  worst  thing  that  the  case  admits  of,  with  the  very 
best  intentions.  And  now  if  these  complications  get  you 
into  any  trouble,  rely  upon  me  so  far  as  I  can  do  anything 
to  help.  Don't  hesitate  to  command  me  at  any  hour  and 
to  any  extent,  because  I  mean  to  see  the  thing  through 
with  you.  When  spring  comes  on,  if  you  get  her  through 
the  winter,  we  must  try  and  find  her  a  place  in  some 
decent,  quiet  farmer's  family  in  the  country,  where  she 
may  feed  chickens  and  ducks,  and  make  butter,  and  live 
a  natural,  healthful,  outdoor  life ;  and,  in  my  opinion, 
that  will  be  the  best  and  safest  way  for  her." 

"Come,  Doctor,"  said  Harry,  "will  you  walk  up  town 
with  me  1  It 's  time  I  was  off." 

"Now,  Harry,  please  remember;  don't  forget  to  match 
that  worsted,"  said  Eva.  "Oh!  and  that  tea  must  be 
changed.  You  just  call  in  and  tell  Haskins  that." 

"Anything  else?"  said  Harry,  buttoning  on  his  over 
coat. 

"No;  only  be  sure  you  come  back  early,  for  mamma 
says  Aunt  Maria  is  coming  down  here  upon  me,  and  I 
shall  want  you  to  strengthen  me.  The  doctor  appreciates 
Aunt  Maria." 

"Certainly  I  do,"  said  the  doctor;  "a  devoted  relation 
who  carries  you  all  in  her  heart  hourly,  and  therefore  has 
an  undoubted  right  to  make  you  as  uncomfortable  as  she 
pleases.  That 's  the  beauty  of  relations.  If  you  have 
them  you  are  bothered  with  them,  and  if  you  have  n't  you 
are  bothered  for  want  of  'em.  So  it  goes.  Now  I  would 


254  WE   AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

give  all  the  world  if  I  had  a  good  aunt  or  grandmother  to 
haul  me  over  the  coals,  and  fight  me,  out  of  pure  love  — 
a  fellow  feels  lonesome  when  he  knows  nobody  would  care 
if  he  went  to  the  devil." 

"Oh,  as  to  that,"  said  Eva,  "come  here  whenever  you  're 
lonesome,  and  we  '11  fight  and  abuse  you  to  your  heart's 
content;  and  you  sha'n't  go  to  that  improper  person  with 
out  our  making  a  fuss  about  it.  We  '11  abuse  you  as  if 
you  were  one  of  the  family." 

"Good,"  said  the  doctor,  as  he  stepped  towards  the 
front  window;  "but  here,  to  be  sure,  is  your  aunt,  bright 
and  early." 


CHAPTER   XXIX 

AUXT    MARIA    FREES    HER    MIND 

THE  door  opened,  to  let  out  the  two  gentlemen,  just  as 
Mrs.  Wouvermans  was  coming  up  the  steps,  fresh  and  crisp 
as  one  out  betimes  on  the  labors  of  a  good  conscience. 
The  dear  woman  had  visited  the  Willises,  at  the  remote 
end  of  the  city,  had  had  diplomatic  conversations  with 
both  mistress  and  maid  in  that  establishment,  and  had  now 
arrived  as  minister  plenipotentiary  to  set  all  matters  right 
in  Eva's  establishment.  She  had  looked  all  through  the 
subject,  made  up  her  mind  precisely  what  Eva  ought  to 
do,  revolved  it  in  her  own  mind  as  she  sat  apparently 
attending  to  a  rather  drowsy  sermon  at  her  church,  and 
was  now  come,  as  full  of  sparkling  vigor  and  brisk  pur 
poses  as  a  well-corked  bottle  of  champagne. 

Eva  met  her  at  the  door  with  the  dutiful  affection  which 
she  had  schooled  herself  to  feel  towards  one  whose  inten 
tions  were  always  so  good,  but  with  a  secret  reserve  of  firm 
resistance  as  to  the  lines  of  her  own  proper  personality. 

"I  have  a  great  deal  to  do,  to-day,"  said  the  lady,  "and 
so  I  came  out  early  to  see  you  before  you  should  be  gone 
out  or  anything,  because  I  had  something  very  particular 
I  wanted  to  say  to  you." 

Eva  took  her  aunt's  things  and  committed  them  to  the 
care  of  Maggie,  who  opened  the  parlor  door  at  this  moment. 
Aunt  Maria  turned  towards  the  girl  in  a  grand  superior 
way,  and  fixed  a  searching  glance  on  her. 

"Maggie,"  she  said,  "is  this  you?  I'm  astonished  to 
see  you  here."  The  words  were  not  much,  but  the  intona- 


256  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

tion  and  manner  were  meant  to  have  all  the  effect  of  an 
awful  and  severe  act  of  judgment  on  a  detected  culprit  — 
to  express  Mrs.  Wouvermans'  opinion  that  Maggie's  pre 
sence  in  any  decent  house  was  an  impertinence  and  a  dis 
grace. 

Maggie's  pale  face  turned  a  shade  paler,  and  her  black 
eyes  flashed  fire,  but  she  said  nothing;  she  went  out  and 
closed  the  door  with  violence. 

"Did  you  see  that?  "  said  Aunt  Maria,  turning  to  Eva. 

"I  saw  it,  aunty,  and  I  must  say  I  think  it  was  more 
your  fault  than  Maggie's.  People  in  our  position  ought 
not  to  provoke  girls,  if  we  do  not  want  to  excite  temper 
and  have  rudeness." 

"Well,  Eva,  I've  come  up  here  to  have  a  plain  talk 
with  you  about  this  girl,  for  I  think  you  don't  know  what, 
you  're  doing  in  taking  her  into  your  house.  I  've  talked 
with  Mrs.  Willis,  and  with  your  Aunt  Atkins,  and  with 
dear  Mrs.  Elmore  about  it,  and  there  is  but  just  one  opin 
ion  —  they  are  all  united  in  the  idea  that  you  ought  not  to 
take  such  a  girl  into  your  family.  You  never  can  do  any 
thing  with  them;  they  are  utterly  good  for  nothing,  and 
they  make  no  end  of  trouble.  I  went  and  talked  to  your 
mother,  but  she  is  just  like  a  bit  of  tow  string,  you  can't 
trust  her  any  way,  and  she  is  afraid  to  come  and  tell  you 
what  she  really  thinks,  but  in  her  heart  she  feels  just  as 
the  rest  of  us  do." 

"Well,  now,  upon  my  word,  Aunt  Maria,  I  can't  see 
what  right  you  and  Mrs.  Willis  and  Aunt  Atkins  and  Mrs. 
Elmore  have  to  sit  as  a  jury  on  my  family  affairs  and  send 
me  advice  as  to  my  arrangements,  and  I  'm  not  in  the  least 
obliged  to  you  for  talking  about  my  affairs  to  them.  I 
think  I  told  you,  some  time  ago,  that  Harry  and  I  intend 
to  manage  our  family  according  to  our  own  judgment;  and, 
while  we  respect  you,  and  are  desirous  of  showing  that 
respect  in  every  proper  way,  we  cannot  allow  you  any  right 


AUNT  MARIA  FREES   HER   MIND  257 

to  intermeddle  in  our  family  matters.  I  am  guided  by  my 
husband's  judgment  (and  you  yourself  admit  that,  for  a 
wife,  there  is  no  other  proper  appeal)  and  Harry  and  I  act 
as  one.  We  are  entirely  united  in  all  our  family  plans." 

"  Oh,  well,  I  suppose  there  is  no  harm  in  my  taking  an 
interest  in  your  family  matters,  since  you  are  my  godchild, 
and  I  brought  you  up,  and  have  always  cared  as  much 
about  you  as  any  mother  could  do  —  in  fact,  I  think  I  have 
felt  more  like  a  mother  to  you  than  Nelly  has.'7 

"Well,  aunty,"  said  Eva,  "of  course,  I  feel  how  kind 
and  good  you  have  always  been,  and  I  'm  sure  I  thank  you 
with  all  my  heart;  but  still,  after  all,  we  must  be  firm  in 
saying  that  you  cannot  govern  our  family." 

"  Who  is  wanting  to  govern  your  family  1  —  what  ridicu 
lous  talk  that  is !  Just  as  if  I  had  ever  tried ;  but  you 
may,  of  course,  allow  your  old  aunt,  that  has  had  experi 
ence  that  you  haven't  had,  to  propose  arrangements  and 
tell  you  of  things  to  your  advantage,  can't  you? " 

"Oh,  of  course,  aunty." 

"Well,  I  went  up  to  the  Willises,  because  they  are 
going  to  Europe,  to  be  gone  for  three  years,  and  I  thought 
I  could  secure  their  Ann  for  you.  Ann  is  a  treasure.  She 
has  been  ten  years  with  the  Willises,  and  Mrs.  Willis  says 
she  don't  know  of  a  fault  that  she  has." 

"Very  well;  but,  aunty,  I  don't  want  Ann,  if  she  were 
an  angel.  I  have  my  Mary,  and  I  prefer  her  to  anybody 
that  could  be  named." 

"But,  Eva,  Mary  is  getting  old,  and  she  is  encumbered 
with  this  witch  of  a  daughter,  whom  she  is  putting  upon 
your  shoulders  and  making  you  carry ;  and  I  perceive  that 
you  '11  be  ridden  to  death  —  it  's  a  perfect  Old  Man  of  the 
Sea  on  your  backs.  Now,  get  rid  of  Mary,  and  you  '11  get 
rid  of  the  whole  trouble.  It  isn't  worth  while,  just  be 
cause  you  've  got  attached  to  Mary,  to  sacrifice  your  inter 
ests  for  her  sake.  Just  let  her  go." 


258  WE  AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

"Well,  now,  aunty,  the  short  of  the  matter  is,  that  I 
will  do  nothing  of  the  kind.  I  won't  let  Mary  go,  and  I 
don't  want  any  other  arrangement  than  just  what  I  have. 
I  am  perfectly  satisfied." 

"Well,  you'll  see  that  your  keeping  that  girl  in  your 
house  will  bring  you  all  into  disgrace  yet,"  said  Aunt 
Maria,  rising  hastily.  "But  it's  no  use  talking.  I  spent 
a  good  half  day  attending  to  this  matter,  and  making 
arrangements  that  would  have  given  you  the  very  best  of 
servants;  but  if  you  choose  to  take  in  tramps,  you  must 
take  the  consequences.  I  can't  help  it,"  and  Aunt  Maria 
rose  vengefully  and  felt  for  her  bonnet. 

Eva  opened  the  door  of  the  little  sewing-room,  where 
Maggie  had  laid  it,  and  saw  her  vanishing  out  of  the  oppo 
site  door. 

"I  hope  she  did  not  hear  you,  aunty,"  she  said  invol 
untarily. 

"I  don't  care  if  she  did,"  was  the  reply,  as  the  injured 
lady  resumed  her  bonnet  and  departed  from  the  house, 
figuratively  shaking  the  dust  from  her  feet. 

Eva  went  out  also  to  attend  to  some  of  her  morning 
business,  and,  on  her  return,  was  met  by  Mary  with  an 
anxious  face.  Maggie  had  gone  out  and  taken  all  her 
things  with  her,  and  was  nowhere  to  be  found.  After  some 
search,  Eva  found  a  paper  pinned  to  the  cushion  of  her 
toilet- table,  on  which  was  written :  — 

DEAR  MRS.  HENDERSON, — You  have  tried  hard  to 
save  me;  but  it 's  no  use.  I  am  only  a  trouble  to  mother, 
and  I  disgrace  you.  So  I  am  going,  and  don't  try  to  find 
me.  May  God  bless  you  and  mother. 

MAGGIE. 


CHAPTER   XXX 

A    DINNER    ON    WASHING-DAY 

THE  world  cannot  wait  for  anybody.  No  matter  whose 
heart  breaks  or  whose  limbs  ache  the  world  must  move 
on.  Life  always  has  its  next  thing  to  be  done,  which 
comes  up  imperatively,  no  matter  what  happens  to  you 
or  me.  So  when  it  appeared  that  Maggie  was  absolutely 
gone  —  gone  without  leaving  trace  or  clue  where  to  look 
for  her,  Mary,  though  distressed  and  broken-hearted,  had 
small  time  for  lamentations. 

For  just  as  Maggie's  note  had  been  found,  read,  and 
explained  to  Mary,  and  in  the  midst  of  grief  and  wonder 
ment,  a  note  was  handed  in  to  Eva  by  an  office-boy,  run 
ning  thus :  — 

DEAR  LITTLE  WIFIE,  —  I  have  caught  Selby,  and  we 
can  have  him  at  dinner  to-night;  and  as  I  know  there's 
nothing  like  you  for  emergencies,  I  secured  him,  and  took 
the  liberty  of  calling  in  on  Alice  and  Angle,  and  telling 
them  to  come.  I  shall  ask  St.  John,  and  Jim,  and  Bolton, 
and  Campbell  —  you  know,  the  more  the  merrier,  and, 
when  you  are  about  it,  it 's  no  more  trouble  to  have  six 
or  seven  than  one;  and  now  you  have  Maggie,  one  may 
as  well  spread  a  little. 

Your  own  HARRY. 

"Was  ever  such  a  man!  "  said  Eva;  "poor  Mary!  I  'm 
sorry  all  this  is  to  come  upon  you  just  as  you  have  so 
much  trouble;  but  just  hear  now!  Mr.  Henderson  has  in- 


260  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

vited  an  English  gentleman  to  dinner,  and  a  whole  parcel 
of  folks  with  him.  Well,  most  of  them  are  our  folks,  Mary 
—  Miss  Angie,  and  Miss  Alice,  and  Mr.  Fellows,  and  Mr. 
Bolton,  and  Mr.  St.  John  —  of  course  we  must  have  him. " 

"Oh,  well,  we  must  just  do  the  best  we  can,"  said 
Mary,  entering  into  the  situation  at  once;  "but  really,  the 
turkey  that 's  been  sent  in  isn't  enough  for  so  many.  If 
you'd  be  so  good  as  to  step  down  to  Simon's,  ma'am,  and 
order  a  pair  of  chickens,  I  could  make  a  chicken  pie,  and 
then  there  's  most  of  that  cold  boiled  ham  left,  and  trimmed 
up  with  parsley  it  would  do  to  set  on  table  —  you'll  ask 
him  to  send  parsley  —  and  the  celery  's  not  enough,  we 
shall  want  two  or  three  more  bunches.  I  'm  sorry  Mr. 
Henderson  couldn't  have  put  it  off,  later  in  the  week,  till 
the  washing  was  out  of  the  way,"  she  concluded  meekly, 
"but  we  must  do  the  best  we  can." 

Now,  Christian  fortitude  has  many  more  showy  and 
sublime  forms,  but  none  more  real  than  that  of  a  poor 
working  woman  suddenly  called  upon  to  change  all  her 
plans  of  operations  on  washing-day,  and  more  especially  if 
the  greatest  and  most  perplexing  of  life's  troubles  meets 
her  at  the  same  moment.  Mary's  patience  and  self-sacri 
fice  showed  that  the  crucifix  and  rosary  and  prayer-book  in 
her  chamber  were  something  more  than  ornamental  append 
ages —  they  were  the  outward  signs  of  a  faith  that  was 
real. 

"My  dear,  good  Mary,"  said  Eva,  "it's  just  sweet  of 
you  to  take  things  so  patiently,  when  I  know  you  're  feel 
ing  so  bad;  but  the  way  it  came  about  is  this:  this  gentle 
man  is  from  England,  and  he  is  one  that  Harry  wants  very 
much  to  show  attention  to,  and  he  only  stays  a  short  time, 
and  so  we  have  to  take  him  Avhen  we  can  get  him.  You 
know  Mr.  Henderson  generally  is  so  considerate." 

"Oh,  I  know,"  said  Mary,  "folks  can't  always  have 
things  just  as  they  want." 


A  DINNER   ON   WASHING-DAY  261 

"And  then,  you  know,  Mary,  he  thought  we  should 
have  Maggie  here  to  help  us.  He  couldn't  know,  you 
see  "  — 

Mary's  countenance  fell,  and  Eva's  heart  smote  her,  as 
if  she  were  hard  and  unsympathetic  in  forcing  her  own 
business  upon  her  in  her  trouble,  and  she  hastened  to 
add:  — 

"We  sha'n't  give  Maggie  up.  I  will  tell  Mr.  Hender 
son  about  her  when  he  comes  home,  and  he  will  know  just 
what  to  do.  You  may  be  sure,  Mary,  he  will  stand  by 
you,  and  leave  no  stone  unturned  to  help  you.  We  '11 
find  her  yet." 

"It's  my  fault  partly,  I'm  afraid;  if  I 'd  only  done 
better  by  her,"  said  Mary;  "and  Mike,  he  was  hard  on 
her;  she  never  would  bear  curbing  in,  Maggie  wouldn't. 
But  we  must  just  do  the  best  we  can,"  she  added,  wiping 
her  eyes  with  her  apron.  "What  would  you  have  for 
dessert,  ma'am  1 " 

"  What  would  you  make  easiest,  Mary  1 " 

"Well,  there's  jelly,  blanc-mange,  or  floating  island, 
though  we  didn't  take  milk  enough  for  that;  but  I  guess 
I  can  borrow  some  of  Dinah  over  the  way.  Miss  Dorcas 
would  be  willing,  I  'm  sure." 

"Well,  Mary,  arrange  it  just  as  you  please.  I'll  go 
down  and  order  more  celery  and  the  chickens,  and  I  know 
you  '11  bring  it  all  right;  you  always  do.  Meanwhile,  I  '11 
go  to  a  fruit  store,  and  get  some  handsome  fruit  to  set  off 
the  table." 

And  so  Eva  went  out,  and  Mary,  left  alone  with  her 
troubles,  went  on  picking  celery,  and  preparing  to  make 
jelly  and  blanc-mange,  with  bitterness  in  her  soul.  Peo 
ple  must  eat,  no  matter  whose  hearts  break,  or  who  go  to 
destruction;  but,  on  the  whole,  this  incessant  drive  of  the 
actual  in  life  is  not  a  bad  thing  for  sorrow.  If  Mary  had 
been  a  rich  woman,  with  nothing  to  do  but  to  go  to  bed 


262  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

with  a  smelling-bottle,  with,  full  leisure  to  pet  and  coddle 
her  griefs,  she  could  not  have  made  half  as  good  headway 
against  them  as  she  did  by  help  of  her  chicken  pie,  and 
jelly,  and  celery  and  what  not,  that  day. 

Eva  had,  to  be  sure,  given  her  the  only  comfort  in  her 
power,  in  the  assurance  that  when  her  husband  came,  home 
she  would  tell  him  about  it,  and  they  would  see  if  any 
thing  could  be  done  to  find  Maggie  and  bring  her  back. 
Poor  Mary  was  full  of  self-reproach  for  what  it  was  too 
late  to  help,  and  with  concern  for  the  trouble  which  she 
felt  her  young  mistress  had  been  subjected  to.  Added  to 
this  was  the  wounded  pride  of  respectability,  even  more 
strong  in  her  class  than  in  higher  ones,  because  with  them 
a  good  name  is  more  nearly  an  only  treasure.  To  be  come 
of  honest,  decent  folk  is  with  them  equivalent  to  what  in 
a  higher  class  would  be  called  coming  of  gentle  blood. 
Then  Mary's  brother  Mike,  in  his  soreness  at  Maggie's  dis 
grace,  had  not  failed  to  blame  the  mother's  way  of  bring 
ing  her  up,  after  the  manner  of  the  world  generally  when 
children  turn  out  badly. 

"She  might  have  expected  this.  She  ought  to  have 
known  it  would  come.  She  had  n't  held  her  in  tight 
enough ;  had  given  her  her  head  too  much ;  his  wife  always 
told  him  they  were  making  a  fool  of  the  girl." 

This  was  a  sharp  arrow  in  Mary's  breast;  because 
Mike's  wife,  Bridget,  was  one  on  whom  Mary  had  looked 
down,  as  in  no  way  an  equal  match  for  her  brother,  and 
her  consequent  want  of  cordiality  in  receiving  her  had 
rankled  in  Bridget's  mind,  so  that  she  was  forward  to  take 
advantage  of  Mary's  humiliation. 

It  is  not  merely  professed  enemies,  but  decent  family 
connections,  we  are  sorry  to  say,  who  in  time  of  trouble 
sometimes  say,  "Aha!  so  would  we  have  it."  All  whose 
advice  has  not  been  taken,  all  who  have  felt  themselves 
outshone  or  slighted,  are  prompt  with  the  style  of  consola- 


A  DINNER   ON   WASHING-DAY  263 

tion  exemplified  by  Job's  friends,  and  eager  above  all 
things  to  prove  to  those  in  trouble  that  they  have  nobody 
but  themselves  to  thank  for  it.  So,  no  inconsiderable  part 
of  Mary's  bitter  herbs  this  day  was  the  prick  and  sting  of 
all  the  possible  things  which  might  be  said  of  her  and 
Maggie  by  Bridget  and  Mike,  and  the  rest  of  the  family 
circle  by  courtesy  included  in  the  term  "her  best  friends." 
Eva,  tender-hearted  and  pitiful,  could  not  help  feeling  a 
sympathetic  cloud  coming  over  her  as  she  watched  poor 
Mary's  woe-struck  and  dejected  air.  She  felt  quite  sure 
that  Maggie  had  listened,  and  overheard  Aunt  Maria's 
philippic  in  the  parlor,  and  that  thus  the  final  impulse 
had  been  given  to  send  her  back  to  her  miserable  courses; 
and  somehow  Eva  could  not  help  a  vague  feeling  of  blame 
from  attaching  to  herself  for  not  having  made  sure  that 
those  violent  and  cruel  denunciations  should  not  be  over 
heard. 

"I  ought  to  have  looked  and  made  sure,  when  I  found 
what  Aunt  Maria  was  at,"  she  said  to  herself.  "If  I  had 
kept  Maggie  upstairs  this  would  not  have  happened." 
But  then,  an  English  literary  man,  that  Harry  thought  a 
good  deal  of,  was  to  dine  there  that  night,  and  Eva  felt  all 
a  housekeeper's  enthusiasm  and  pride  to  have  everything 
charming.  You  know  how  it  is,  sisters.  Each  time  that 
you  have  a  social  enterprise  in  hand  you  put  your  entire 
soul  into  it  for  the  time  being,  and  have  a  complete  little 
set  of  hopes  and  fears,  joys,  sorrows,  and  plans,  born  with 
the  day  and  dying  with  the  morrow. 

Just  as  she  was  busy  arranging  her  flowers  the  door 
bell  rang,  and  Jim  Fellows  came  in  with  a  basket  of  fruit. 

"Good-morning,"  he  said;  "Harry  told  me  you  were 
going  to  have  a  little  blow-out  to-night,  and  I  thought  I  'd 
bring  in  a  contribution." 

"Oh!  thanks,  Jim;  they  are  exactly  the  thing  I  was 
going  out  to  look  for.  How  lovely  of  you! " 


264  WE   AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

"Well,  they've  come  to  you  without  looking,  then," 
said  Jim.  "Any  commands  for  me?  Can't  I  help  you 
in  any  way  1 " 

"No,  Jim,  unless  —  well,  you  know  my  good  Mary  is 
the  great  wheel  of  this  establishment,  and  if  she  breaks 
down  we  all  go  too  —  for  I  shouldn't  know  what  to  do  a 
single  day  without  her." 

"  Well,  what  has  happened  to  this  great  wheel  ? "  said 
Jim.  "Has  it  a  cold  in  its  head,  or  what?  " 

"  Come,  Jim,  don't  make  fun  of  my  metaphors ;  the  fact  is, 
that  Mary's  daughter,  Maggie,  has  run  off  again  and  left  her." 

"Just  what  she  might  have  expected,"  said  Jim. 

"No;  Maggie  was  doing  very  well,  and  I  really  thought 
I  should  make  something  of  her.  She  thought  everything 
of  me,  and  I  could  get  along  with  her  perfectly  well,  and 
I  found  her  very  ingenious  and  capable;  but  her  relations 
all  took  up  against  her,  and  her  uncle  came  in  last  night 
and  talked  to  her  till  she  was  in  a  perfect  fury. " 

"Of  course,"  said  Jim,  "that 's  the  world's  way;  a  fel 
low  can't  repent  and  turn  quietly,  he  must  have  his  sins 
well  rubbed  into  him,  and  his  nose  held  to  the  grindstone. 
I  should  know  that  Maggie  would  flare  up  under  that  style 
of  operation;  those  great  black  eyes  of  hers  are  not  for 
nothing,  I  can  tell  you." 

"Well,  you  see  it  was  last  night,  while  I  was  up  at 
papa's,  that  her  uncle  came,  and  they  had  a  stormy  time, 
I  fancy;  and  when  Harry  and  I  came  home  we  found 
Maggie  just  flying  out  of  the  door  in  desperation,  and  I 
brought  her  back,  and  quieted  her  down,  and  brought  her 
to  reason,  and  her  mother  too,  and  made  it  all  smooth  and 
right.  But,  this  morning,  came  in  Aunt  Maria  "  — 

Jim  gave  a  significant  whistle. 

"Yes,  you  may  well  whistle.  You  see,  Maggie  once 
lived  with  Aunt  Maria,  and  she  's  dead  set  against  her,  and 
came  to  make  me  turn  her  out  of  my  house,  if  she  could. 


A   DINNER   ON   WASHING-DAY  265 

You  ought  to  have  seen  the  look  of  withering  scorn  and 
denunciation  she  gave  Maggie  when  she  opened  the  door! 
and  she  talked  about  her  so  loud  to  me,  and  said  so  much 
to  induce  me  to  turn  away  "both  her  and  Mary,  and  take 
another  set  of  girls,  that  I  don't  wonder  Maggie  went  off; 
and  now  poor  Mary  is  quite  broken-hearted.  It  makes 
me  feel  sad  to  see  her  go  about  her  work  so  forlorn  and 
patient,  wiping  her  eyes  every  once  in  a  while,  and  yet 
doing  everything  for  me,  like  the  good  soul  she  always  is." 

"By  George!"  said  Jim;  "I  wish  I  could  help  her. 
Well,  I  '11  put  somebody  on  Maggie's  track  and  we  '11  find 
her  out.  I  know  all  the  detectives  and  the  police  —  trust 
us  newspaper  fellows  for  that  —  and  Maggie  is  a  pretty 
marked  article,  and  I  think  I  may  come  on  the  track  of 
her;  there  are  not  many  things  that  Jim  can't  find  out, 
when  he  sets  himself  to  work.  Meanwhile,  have  you  any 
errands  for  me  to  run,  or  any  message  to  send  to  your 
folks'?  I  may  as  well  take  it,  while  I  'm  about  it." 

"Well,  yes,  Jim;  if  you'd  be  kind  enough,  as  you  go 
by  papa's,  to  ask  Angie  to  come  down  and  help  me.  She 
is  always  so  brisk  and  handy,  and  keeps  one  in  such  good 
spirits,  too." 

"Oh  yes,  Angie  is  always  up  and  dressed,  whoever 
wants  her,  and  is  good  for  any  emergency.  The  little 
woman  has  Christmas  tree  on  her  brain  just  now  —  for  our 
Sunday-school;  only  the  other  night,  she  was  showing  me 
the  hoods  and  tippets  she  had  been  knitting  for  it,  like  a 
second  Dorcas  "  — 

"Yes,"  said  Eva,  "we  must  all  have  a  consultation 
about  that  Christmas  tree.  I  wanted  to  see  Mr.  St.  John 
about  it." 

"Do  you  think  there  were  any  Christmas  trees  in  the 
first  centuries,"  said  Jim,  "or  any  churchly  precedent  for 
them  1  —  else  I  don't  see  how  St.  John  is  going  to  allow 
such  a  worldly  affair  in  his  chapel." 


266  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

"Oh,  pshaw!  Mr.  St.  John  is  sensible.  He  listened 
with  great  interest  to  Arigie,  the  other  night,  while  she 
was  telling  about  one  that  she  helped  get  up  last  year  in 
Dr.  Gushing' s  Sunday-school  room,  and  he  seemed  quite 
delighted  with  the  idea;  and  Angie  and  Alice  and  I  are 
on  a  committee  to  get  a  list  of  children  and  look  up  pre 
sents,  and  that  was  one  thing  I  wanted  to  talk  about  to 
night." 

"Well,  get  St.  John  and  Angie  to  talking  tree  together, 
and  she  '11  edify  him.  St.  John  is  O.  K.  about  all  the 
particulars  of  how  they  managed  in  the  catacombs,  without 
doubt,  and  he  gets  ahead  of  us  all  preaching  about  the 
primitive  Christians,  but  come  to  a  Christmas  tree  for  New 
York  street  boys  and  girls,  in  the  nineteenth  century,  I  '11 
bet  on  Angie  to  go  ahead  of  him.  He  '11  have  to  learn  of 
her  —  and  you  see  he  won't  find  it  hard  to  take,  either. 
Jim  knows  a  thing  or  two."  And  Jim  cocked  his  head  on 
one  side,  like  a  saucy  sparrow,  and  looked  provokingly 
knowing. 

"Now,  Jim,  what  do  you  mean?  " 

"Oh,  nothing.  Alice  says  I  mustn't  think  anything  or 
say  anything,  on  pain  of  her  high  displeasure.  But,  you 
just  watch  the  shepherd  and  Angie  to-night." 

"Jim,  you  provoking  creature,  you  mustn't  talk  so." 

"Bless  your  heart,  who  is  talking  so?  Am  I  saying 
anything?  Of  course  I'm  not  saying  anything.  Alice 
won't  let  me.  I  always  have  to  shut  my  eyes  and  look 
the  other  way  when  Angie  and  St.  John  are  around,  for 
fear  I  should  say  something  and  make  a  remark.  Jim 
says  nothing,  but  he  thinks  all  the  more." 

Now,  we  '11  venture  to  say  that  there  is  n't  a  happy 
young  wife  in  the  first  months  of  wifehood  that  isn't  pre 
disposed  to  hope  for  all  her  friends  a  happy  marriage,  as 
about  the  summit  of  human  bliss;  and  so  Eva  was  not 
shocked  like  Alice  by  the  suggestion  that  her  rector  might 


A  DINNER  ON   WASHING-DAY  267 

become  a  candidate  for  the  sacrament  of  matrimony.  On 
the  contrary,  it  occurred  to  her  at  once  that  the  pretty, 
practical,  lively,  efficient  little  Angie  might  he  a  true 
angel,  not  merely  of  church  and  Sunday-school,  but  of  a 
rector's  house.  He  was  ideal  and  theoretic,  and  she  prac 
tical  and  common-sense;  yet  she  was  pretty  enough,  and 
picturesque,  and  fanciful  enough  for  an  ideal  man  to  make 
a  poem  of,  and  weave  webs  around,  and  write  sonnets  to ; 
and  as  all  these  considerations  flashed  at  .once  upon  Eva's 
mind  she  went  on  settling  a  spray  of  geranium  with  rose 
buds,  a  pleased,  dreamy  smile  on  her  face.  After  a  mo 
ment's  pause  she  said,  "Jim,  if  you  see  a  bird  considering 
whether  to  build  a  nest  in  the  tree  by  your  window,  and 
want  him  there,  the  way  is  to  keep  pretty  still  about  it 
and  not  go  to  the  window,  and  watch,  and  call  people,  say 
ing,  *  Oh,  see  here,  there  's  a  bird  going  to  build!  '  Don't 
you  see  the  sense  of  my  parable  1 " 

"Well,  why  do  you  talk  to  me?  Haven't  I  kept  away 
from  the  window,  and  walked  round  on  tiptoe  like  a  cat, 
and  only  given  the  quietest  look  out  of  the  corner  of  my 
eye?" 

"Well,  it  seems  you  couldn't  help  calling  my  attention 
and  Alice's.  Don't  extend  the  circle  of  observers,  Jim." 

"  See  if  I  do.  You  '11  find  me  discretion  itself.  I  shall 
be  so  quiet  that  even  a  humming-bird's  nerves  couldn't  be 
disturbed.  Well,  good- by  for  the  present." 

"Oh,  but,  Jim,  don't  forget  to  do  what  you  can  about 
Maggie.  It  really  seems  selfish  in  me  to  be  absorbed  in 
my  own  affairs,  and  not  doing  anything  to  help  Mary,  poor 
thing,  when  she  's  so  good  to  me." 

"Well,  I  don't  see  but  you  are  doing  all  you  can.  I  '11 
see  about  it  right  away  and  report  to  you,"  said  Jim;  "so, 
au  revoir." 

Angie  came  in  about  lunch  time;  the  two  sisters,  once 
at  their  tea  and  toast,  discussed  the  forthcoming  evening's 


268  WE  AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

preparations  and  the  Christmas  Sunday-school  operations: 
and  Eva,  with  the  light  of  Jim's  suggestions  in  her  mind, 
began  to  observe  certain  signs  of  increasing  intimacy  be 
tween  Angie  and  Mr.  St.  John. 

"Oh,  Eva,  I  want  to  tell  you:  I  went  to  see  those  poor 
Prices,  Saturday  afternoon;  and  there  was  John,  just  back 
from  one  of  those  dreadful  sprees  that  he  will  have  every 
two  or  three  weeks.  You  never  saw  a  creature  so  humble 
and  so  sorry,  and  so  good,  and  so  anxious  to  make  up  with 
his  wife  and  me,  and  everybody  all  round,  as  he  was.  He 
was  sitting  there,  nursing  his  wife  and  tending  his  baby, 
just  as  handy  as  a  woman,  —  for  she,  poor  thing,  has  had 
a  turn  of  fever,  in  part,  I  think,  brought  on  by  worry  and 
anxiety;  but  she  seemed  so  delighted  and  happy  to  have 
him  back !  and  I  could  n't  help  thinking  what  a  shame  it 
is  that  there  should  be  any  such  thing  as  rum,  and  that 
there  should  be  people  who  make  it  their  business  and  get 
their  living  by  tempting  people  to  drink  it.  If  I  were 
a  queen  I  'd  shut  up  all  the  drinking-shops  right  off! " 

"I  fancy,  if  we  women  could  have  our  way,  we  should 
do  it  pretty  generally." 

"Well,  I  don't  know  about  that,"  said  Angie.  "One 
of  the  worst  shops  in  John's  neighborhood  is  kept  by  a 
woman. " 

"Well,  it  seems  so  hopeless  —  this  weakness  of  these 
men,"  said  Eva. 

"Oh,  well,  never  despair,"  said  Angie.  "I  found  him 
in  such  a  good  mood  that  I  could  say  anything  I  wanted 
to,  and  I  found  that  he  was  feeling  terribly  because  he 
had  lost  his  situation  in  Sanders'  store  on  account  of  his 
drinking  habits.  He  had  been  a  porter  and  errand  boy 
there,  and  he  is  so  obliging  and  quick  that  he  is  a  great 
favorite ;  but  they  got  tired  of  his  being  so  unreliable,  and 
had  sent  him  word  that  they  didn't  want  him  any  more. 
Well,  you  see,  here  was  an  opportunity.  I  said  to  him, 


A  DINNER   ON   WASHING-DAY  269 

c  John,  I  know  Mr.  Sanders,  and  if  you  '11  sign  a  solemn 
pledge  never  to  touch  another  drop  of  liquor,  or  go  into  a 
place  where  it  is  sold,  I  will  try  and  get  him  to  take  you 
back  again. '  So  I  got  a  sheet  of  paper  and  wrote  a  pledge, 
strong  and  solemn,  in  a  good  round  hand,  and  he  put  his 
name  to  it;  and  just  then  Mr.  St.  John  came  in  and  I 
showed  it  to  him,  and  he  spoke  beautifully  to  him,  and 
prayed  with  him,  and  I  really  do  hope,  now,  that  John 
will  stand." 

"So,  Mr.  St.  John  visits  them?" 

"Oh,  to  be  sure;  ever  since  I  had  those  children  in  my 
class  he  has  been  very  attentive  there.  I  often  hear  of 
his  calling;  and  when  he  was  walking  home  with  me  after 
wards  he  told  me  about  that  article  of  Dr.  Campbell's  and 
advised  me  to  read  it.  He  said  it  had  given  him  some 
new  ideas.  He  called  this  family  my  little  parish,  and 
said  I  could  do  more  than  he  could.  Just  think  of  our 
rector  saying  that." 

Eva  did  think  of  it,  but  forbore  to  comment  aloud. 
"Jim  was  right,"  she  said  to  herself. 


CHAPTER   XXXI 

WHAT    THEY    TALKED    ABOUT 

THE  dinner-party,  like  many  impromptu  social  ventures, 
was  a  success.  Mr.  Selby  proved  one  of  that  delightful 
class  of  English  travelers  who  travel  in  America  to  see  and 
enter  into  its  peculiar  and  individual  life,  and  not  to  show1 
up  its  points  of  difference  from  Old  World  social  standards. 
He  seemed  to  take  the  sense  of  a  little  family  dinner,  got 
up  on  short  notice,  in  which  the  stereotyped  doctrine  of 
courses  was  steadfastly  ignored;  where  there  was  no  soup 
or  fish,  and  only  a  good  substantial  course  of  meat  and 
vegetables,  with  a  slight  dessert  of  fruit  and  confectionery; 
where  there  was  no  black  servant,  with  white  gloves,  to 
change  the  plates,  but  only  respectable,  motherly  Mary, 
who  had  tidied  herself  and  taken  the  office  of  waiter  in 
addition  to  her  services  as  cook. 

A  real  high- class  English  gentleman,  when  he  fairly 
finds  himself  out  from  under  that  leaden  pale  of  conven 
tionalities  which  weighs  down  elasticity  like  London  fog 
and  smoke,  sometimes  exhibits  all  the  hilarity  of  a  boy  out 
of  school  on  a  long  vacation,  and  makes  himself  frisky  and 
gamesome  to  a  degree  that  would  astonish  the  solemn  divi 
nities  of  insular  decorum.  Witness  the  stories  of  the 
private  fun  and  frolic  of  Thackeray  and  Dickens,  on  whom 
the  intoxicating  sense  of  social  freedom  wrought  residts 
sometimes  surprising  to  staid  Americans;  as  when  Thack 
eray  rode  with  his  heels  out  of  the  carriage  window  through 
immaculate  and  gaping  Boston  and  Dickens  perpetrated  his 
celebrated  walking  wager. 


WHAT  THEY   TALKED  ABOUT  271 

Mr.  Selby  was  a  rising  literary  man  in  the  London  writ 
ing  world,  who  had  made  his  own  way  up  in  the  world, 
and  known  hard  times  and  hard  commons,  though  now  in 
a  lucrative  position.  It  would  have  been  quite  possible, 
by  spending  a  suitable  sum  and  deranging  the  whole  house, 
to  set  him  down  to  a  second-rate  imitation  of  a  dull,  con 
ventional  London  dinner,  with  waiters  in  white  chokers, 
and  protracted  and  circuitous  courses;  and  in  that  case  Mr. 
Selby  would  have  frozen  into  a  stiff,  well  preserved  Briton, 
with  immaculate  tie  and  gloves,  and  a  guarded  and  diplo 
matic  reserve  of  demeanor.  Eva  would  have  been  ner 
vously  thinking  of  the  various  unusual  arrangements  of  the 
dinner- table,  and  a  general  stiffness  and  embarrassment 
would  have  resulted.  People  who  entertain  strangers  from 
abroad  often  reenact  the  mistake  of  the  two  Englishmen 
who  traveled  all  night  in  a  diligence,  laboriously  talking 
broken  French  to  each  other,  till  at  dawn  they  found  out 
by  a  chance  slip  of  the  tongue  that  they  were  both  English. 
So,  at  heart,  every  true  man,  especially  in  a  foreign  land, 
is  wanting  what  every  true  household  can  give  him  —  sin 
cere  homely  feeling,  the  sense  of  domesticity,  the  comfort 
of  being  off  parade  and  among  friends;  and  Mr.  Selby  saw 
in  the  first  ten  minutes  that  this  was  what  he  had  found 
in  the  Hendersons'  house. 

In  the  hour  before  dinner  Eva  had  shown  him  her  ivies 
and  her  ferns  and  her  manner  of  training  them,  and  found 
an  appreciative  observer  and  listener.  Mr.  Selby  was  curi 
ous  about  American  interiors  and  the  detail  of  domestic 
life  among  people  of  moderate  fortune.  He  was  interested 
in  the  modes  of  warming  and  lighting,  and  arranging  fur 
niture,  etc. ;  and  soon  Eva  and  he  were  all  over  the  house, 
while  she  eloquently  explained  to  him  the  working  of  the 
furnace,  the  position  of  the  water  pipes,  and  the  various 
comforts  and  conveniences  which  they  had  introduced  into 
their  little  territories. 


272  WE   AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

"I  've  got  a  little  box  of  my  own  at  Kentish-Town,"  Mr. 
Selby  said  in  a  return  burst  of  confidence,  "and  I  shall 
tell  my  wife  about  some  of  your  contrivances;  the  fact  is," 
he  added,  "we  literary  people  need  to  learn  all  these  ways 
of  being  comfortable  at  small  expense.  The  problem  of 
our  age  is,  that  of  perfecting  small  establishments  for  peo 
ple  of  moderate  means;  and  I  must  say,  I  think  it  has 
been  carried  further  in  your  country  than  with  us." 

In  due  course  followed  an  introduction  to  "my  wife," 
whose  photograph  Mr.  Selby  wore  dutifully  in  his  coat- 
pocket,  over  the  exact  region  of  the  heart;  and  then  came 
"my  son,"  four  years  old,  with  all  his  playthings  round 
him;  and,  in  short,  before  an  hour,  Eva  and  he  were  old 
acquaintances,  ready  to  tell  each  other  family  secrets. 

Alice  and  Angelique  were  delightful  girls  to  reinforce 
and  carry  out  the  home  charm  of  the  circle.  They  had 
eminently  what  belongs  to  the  best  class  of  American 
girls,  —  that  noble  frankness  -of  manner,  that  fearless  giving 
forth  of  their  inner  nature,  which  comes  from  the  atmos 
phere  of  free  democratic  society.  Like  most  high-bred 
American  girls,  they  had  traveled,  and  had  opportunities 
of  observing  European  society,  which  added  breadth  to 
their  range  of  conversation  without  taking  anything  from 
their  frank  simplicity.  Foreign  travel  produces  two  oppo 
site  kinds  of  social  effect,  according  to  character.  Persons 
who  are  narrow  in  their  education,  sensitive  and  self-dis 
trustful,  are  embarrassed  by  a  foreign  experience ;  they  lose 
their  confidence  in  their  home  life,  in  their  own  country 
and  its  social  habitudes,  and  get  nothing  adequate  in  re 
turn;  their  efforts  at  hospitality  are  repressed  by  a  sort  of 
mental  comparison  of  themselves  with  foreign  models;  they 
shrink  from  entertaining  strangers,  through  an  indefinite 
fear  that  they  shall  come  short  of  what  would  be  expected 
somewhere  else.  But  persons  of  more  breadth  of  thought 
and  more  genuine  courage  see  at  once  that  there  is  a  char- 


WHAT   THEY  TALKED  ABOUT  273 

acteristic  American  home  life,  and  that  what  a  foreigner 
seeks  in  a  foreign  country  is  the  peculiarity  of  that  coun 
try,  and  not  an  attempt  to  reproduce  that  which  has 
become  stupid  and  tedious  to  him  by  constant  repetition 
at  home. 

Angelique  and  Alice  talked  readily  and  freely;  Alice 
with  the  calm,  sustained  good  sense  and  dignity  which  was 
characteristic  of  her,  and  Angelique  in  those  sunny  jets 
and  flashes  of  impulsive  gayety  which  rise  like  a  fountain 
at  the  moment.  Given  the  presence  of  three  female  per 
sonages  like  Eva,  Alice,  and  Angelique,  and  it  would  not 
be  among  the  possibilities  for  a  given  set  of  the  other  sex 
to  be  dull  or  heavy.  Then,  most  of  the  gentlemen  were 
more  or  less  habitues  of  the  house,  and  somewhat  accorded 
with  each  other,  like  instruments  that  have  been  played  in 
unison ;  and  it  is  not,  therefore,  to  be  wondered  at  that  Mr. 
Selby  made  the  mental  comment  that,  taken  at  home,  these 
Americans  are  delightful,  and  that  cultivated  American 
women  are  particularly  so  from  their  engaging  frankness  of 
manner. 

There  would  be  a  great  deal  more  obedience  to  the  apos 
tolic  injunction,  "Be  not  forgetful  to  entertain  strangers," 
if  it  once  could  be  clearly  got  into  the  heads  of  well-intend 
ing  people  what  it  is  that  strangers  want.  AVhat  do  you 
want,  when  away  from  home,  in  a  strange  city  ?  Is  it  not 
the  warmth  of  the  home  fireside,  and  the  sight  of  people 
that  you  know  care  for  you  1  Is  it  not  the  blessed  privi 
lege  of  speaking  and  acting  yourself  out  unconstrainedly 
among  those  who  you  know  understand  you1?  And  had 
you  not  rather  dine  with  an  old  friend  on  simple  cold 
mutton,  offered  with  a  warm  heart,  than  go  to  a  splendid 
ceremonious  dinner-party  among  people  who  don't  care  a 
rush  for  you  1 

Well,  then,  set  it  down  in  your  book  that  other  people 
are  like  you;  and  that  the  art  of  entertaining  is  the  art  of 


274  WE   AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

really  caring  for  people.  If  you  have  a  warm  heart,  con 
genial  tastes,  and  a  real  interest  in  your  stranger,  don't 
fear  to  invite  him,  though  you  have  no  best  dinner  set, 
and  your  existing  plates  are  sadly  chipped  at  the  edges, 
and  even  though  there  be  a  handle  broken  off  from  the  side 
of  your  vegetable  dish.  Set  it  down  in  your  belief  that 
you  can  give  something  better  than  a  dinner,  however 
good,  —  you  can  give  a  part  of  yourself.  You  can  give 
love,  good  will,  and  sympathy,  of  which  there  has,  per 
haps,  been  quite  as  much  over  cracked  plates  and  restricted 
table  furniture  as  over  Sevres  china  and  silver. 

It  soon  appeared  that  Mr.  Selby,  like  other  sensible 
Englishmen,  had  a  genuine  interest  in  getting  below  the 
surface  life  of  our  American  world,  and  coming  to  the  real 
"hard-pan"  on  which  our  social  fabric  is  founded.  He 
was  full  of  intelligent  curiosity  as  to  the  particulars  of 
American  journalism,  its  management,  its  possibilities,  its 
remunerations  compared  with  those  of  England;  and  here 
was  where  Bolton's  experience  and  Jim  Fellows 's  many- 
sided  practical  observations  came  out  strongly. 

Alice  was  delighted  with  the  evident  impression  that 
Jim  made  on  a  man  whose  good  opinion  appeared  to  be 
worth  having ;  for  'that  young  lady,  insensibly  perhaps  to 
herself,  held  a  sort  of  right  of  property  in  Jim,  such  as 
the  princesses  of  the  Middle  Ages  had  in  the  knights  that 
wore  their  colors;  and  Jim,  undoubtedly,  was  inspired  by 
the  idea  that  bright  eyes  looked  on  to  do  his  devoir  man 
fully  in  the  conversation.  So  they  went  over  all  the 
chances  and  prospects  of  income  and  living  for  literary  men 
and  journalists  in  the  two  countries;  the  facilities  for  mar 
riage,  and  the  establishment  of  families,  including  salaries, 
rents,  prices  of  goods,  etc.  In  the  course  of  the  conversa 
tion  Mr.  Selby  made  many  frank  statements  of  his  own 
personal  experience  and  observation,  which  were  responded 
to  with  equal  frankness  on  the  part  of  Harry  and  Eva  and 


WHAT   THEY    TALKED   ABOUT  275 

others,  till  it  finally  seemed  as  if  the  whole  company  were 
as  likely  to  become  au  courant  of  each  other's  affairs  as 
a  party  of  brothers  and  sisters.  Eva,  sitting  at  the  head, 
like  a  skillful  steerswoman,  turned  the  helm  of  conversa 
tion  adroitly,  now  this  way  and  now  that,  to  draw  out  the 
forces  of  all  her  guests,  and  bring  each  into  play.  She 
introduced  the  humanitarian  questions  of  the  day ;  and  the 
subject  branched  at  once  upon  what  was  doing  by  the 
Christian  world:  the  High  Church,  the  ritualists,  the  broad 
Church,  and  the  dissenters  all  rose  upon  the  carpet,  and 
St.  John  was  wide  awake  and  earnest  in  his  inquiries.  In 
fact,  an  eager  talking  spirit  descended  upon  them,  and  it 
was  getting  dark  when  Eva  made  the  move  to  go  to  the 
parlor,  where  a  bright  fire  and  coffee  awaited  them. 

"I  always  hate  to  drop  very  dark  shades  over  my  win 
dows  in  the  evening,"  said  Eva,  as  she  went  in  and  began 
letting  down  the  lace  curtains;  "I  like  to  have  the  firelight 
of  a  pleasant  room  stream  out  into  the  dark,  and  look 
cheerful  and  hospitable  outside;  for  that  reason  I  don't 
like  inside  shutters.  Do  you  know,  Mr.  Selby,  how  your 
English  arrangements  used  to  impress  me  ?  They  were  all 
meant  to  be  very  delightful  to  those  inside,  but  freezingly 
repulsive  to  those  without.  Your  beautiful  grounds  that 
one  longs  to  look  at  are  guarded  by  high  stone  walls  with 
broken  bottles  on  the  top,  to  keep  one  from  even  hoping 
to  get  over.  Now,  I  think  beautiful  grounds  are  a  public 
charity,  and  a  public  education;  and  a  man  shouldn't 
build  a  high  wall  round  them,  so  that  even  the  sight  of  his 
trees,  and  the  odor  of  his  flowers,  should  be  denied  to  his 
poor  neighbors." 

"  It  all  comes  of  our  national  love  of  privacy, "  said  Mr. 
Selby;  "it  isn't  stinginess,  I  beg  you  to  believe,  Mrs. 
Henderson,  but  shyness,  —  you  find  our  hearts  all  right 
when  you  get  in." 

"That  we  do;  but,  I  beg  pardon,  Mr.  Selby,  oughtn't 


276  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

shyness  to  be  put  down  in  the  list  of  besetting  sins,  and 
fought  against?  Isn't  it  the  enemy  of  brotherly  kindness 
and  charity  1 " 

"Certainly,  Mrs.  Henderson,  you  practice  so  delight 
fully,  one  cannot  find  fault  with  your  preaching,"  said  Mr. 
Selby;  "but,  after  all,  is  it  a  sin  to  want  to  keep  one's 
private  life  to  himself,  and  unexposed  to  the  comments  of 
vulgar,  uncongenial  natures  ?  It  seems  to  me,  if  you  will 
pardon  the  suggestion,  that  there  is  too  little  of  this  sense 
of  privacy  in  America.  Your  public  men,  for  instance,  are 
required  to  live  in  glass  cases,  so  that  they  may  be  con 
stantly  inspected  behind  and  before.  Your  press  inter 
viewers  beset  them  on  every  hand,  take  down  their  chance 
observations,  record  everything  they  say  and  do,  and  how 
they  look  and  feel  at  every  moment  of  their  lives.  I  con 
fess  that  I  would  rather  be  comfortably  burned  at  the  stake 
at  once  than  be  one  of  your  public  men  in  America;  and 
all  this  comes  of  your  not  being  shy  and  reserved.  It 's 
a  state  of  things  impossible  in  the  kind  of  country  that  has 
high  walls  with  glass  bottles  around  its  private  grounds." 

"He  has  us  there,  Eva,"  said  Harry;  "our  vulgar, 
jolly,  democratic  level  of  equality  over  here  produces  just 
these  insufferable  results;  there  's  no  doubt  about  it." 

"Well,"  said  Jim,  "I  have  one  word  to  say  about  news 
paper  reporters.  Poor  boys!  everybody  is  down  on  them, 
nobody  has  a  bit  of  charity  for  them;  and  yet,  bless  you, 
it  isn't  their  fault  if  they're  impertinent  and  prying. 
That  is  what  they  are  engaged  for  and  paid  for,  and  kicked 
out  if  they  're  not  up  to.  Why,  look  you,  here  are  four 
or  five  big  dailies  running  the  general  gossip-mill  for  these 
great  United  States,  and  if  any  one  of  them  gets  a  bit  of 
news  before  another,  it 's  a  victory  —  a  'beat.'  Well,  if 
the  boys  are  not  sharp,  if  other  papers  get  things  that  they 
don't  or  can't,  off  they  must  go;  and  the  boys  have  mo 
thers  and  sisters  to  support  —  and  want  to  get  wives  some 


WHAT   THEY   TALKED   ABOUT  277 

day  —  and  the  reporting  business  is  the  first  round  of  the 
ladder;  if  they  get  pitched  off,  it  'a  all  over  with  them." 

"Precisely,"  said  Mr.  Selby;  "it  is,  if  you  will  pardon 
my  saying  it,  it  is  your  great  American  public  that  wants 
these  papers  and  takes  them,  and  takes  the  most  of  those 
that  have  the  most  gossip  in  them,  that  are  to  blame. 
They  make  the  reporters  what  they  are,  and  keep  them 
what  they  are,  by  the  demand  they  keep  up  for  their 
wares;  and  so,  I  say,  if  Mrs.  Henderson  will  pardon  me, 
that,  as  yet,  I  am  unable  to  put  down  our  national  shyness 
in  the  catalogue  of  sins  to  be  fought  against.  I  confess  I 
would  rather,  if  I  should  ever  happen  to  have  any  literary 
fame,  I  would  rather  shut  my  shutters,  evenings,  and  have 
high  walls  with  glass  bottles  on  top  around  my  grounds, 
and  not  have  every  vulgar,  impertinent  fellow  in  the  com 
munity  commenting  on  my  private  affairs.  Now,  in  Eng 
land,  we  have  all  arrangements  to  keep  our  families  to  our 
selves,  and  to  such  intimates  as  we  may  approve." 

"Oh  yes,  I  knew  it  to  my  cost  when  I  was  in  Eng 
land,"  said  Eva.  "You  might  be  in  a  great  hotel  with  all 
the  historic  characters  of  your  day,  and  see  no  more  of 
them  than  if  you  were  in  America.  They  came  in  close 
family  carriages,  they  passed  to  close  family  rooms,  they 
traveled  in  railroad  compartments  specially  secured  to  them 
selves,  and  you  knew  no  more  about  them  than  if  you  had 
stayed  at  home." 

"Well,"  said  Mr.  Selby,  "you  describe  what  I  think 
are  very  nice,  creditable,  comfortable  ways  of  managing." 

"With  not  even  a  newspaper  reporter  to  tell  the  people 
what  they  were  talking  about,  and  what  gowns  their  wives 
and  daughters  wore,"  said  Bolton  dryly.  "I  confess,  of 
the  two  extremes,  the  English  would  most  accord  with  my 
natural  man." 

"So  it  is  with  all  of  us,"  said  St.  John;  "the  question 
is,  though,  whether  this  strict  caste  system  which  links 


278  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

people  in  certain  lines  and  ruts  of  social  life  does  n't  make 
it  impossible  to  have  that  knowledge  of  one  another  as  hu 
man  beings  which  Christianity  requires.  It  struck  me  in 
England  that  the  High  clergy  had  very  little  practical  com 
prehension  of  the  feelings  of  the  lower  classes,  and  their 
wives  and  daughters  less.  They  were  prepared  to  dispense 
charity  to  them  from  above,  but  not  to  study  them  on  the 
plane  of  equal  intercourse.  They  never  mingle,  any  more 
than  oil  and  water;  and  that,  I  think,  is  why  so  much 
charity  in  England  is  thrown  away  —  the  different  classes 
do  not  understand  each  other,  and  never  can." 

"Yes,"  said  Harry;  "with  all  the  disadvantages  and 
disagreeable  results  of  our  democratic  jumble  in  society, 
our  common  cars  where  all  ride  side  by  side,  our  hotel 
parlors  where  all  sit  together,  and  our  tables  d'hote  where 
all  dine  together,  we  do  know  each  other  better,  and  there 
is  less  chance  of  class  misunderstandings  and  jealousies, 
than  in  England." 

"For  my  part,  I  sympathize  with  Mr.  Selby,  according 
to  the  flesh,"  said  Mr.  St.  John.  "The  sheltered  kind  of 
life  one  leads  in  English  good  society  is  what  I  prefer; 
but,  if  our  Christianity  is  good  for  anything,  we  cannot 
choose  what  we  prefer." 

"I  have  often  thought,"  said  Eva,  "that  the  pressure  of 
vulgar  notoriety,  the  rush  of  the  crowd  around  our  Saviour, 
was  evidently  the  same  kind  of  trial  to  him  that  it  must 
be  to  every  refined  and  sensitive  nature;  and  yet  how  con 
stant  and  how  close  was  his  affiliation  with  the  lowest  and 
poorest  in  his  day.  He  lived  with  them,  he  gave  them 
just  what  we  shrink  from  giving  —  his  personal  presence  — 
himself."  Eva  spoke  with  a  heightened  color  and  with  a 
burst  of  self-forgetful  enthusiasm.  There  was  a  little  pause 
afterwards,  as  if  a  strain  of  music  had  suddenly  broken 
into  the  conversation,  and  Mr.  Selby,  after  a  moment's 
pause,  said :  — 


WHAT   THEY   TALKED   ABOUT  279 

"Mrs.  Henderson,  I  give  way  to  that  suggestion. 
Sometimes,  for  a  moment,  I  get  a  glimpse  that  Christianity 
is  something  higher  and  purer  than  any  conventional  church 
shows  forth,  and  I  feel  that  we  nominal  Christians  are  not 
living  on  that  plane,  and  that  if  Ave  only  could  live  thus, 
it  would  settle  the  doubts  of  modern  skeptics  faster  than 
any  Bampton  Lectures." 

"Well,"  said  Eva,  "it  does  seem  as  if  that  which  is 
best  for  society  on  the  whole  is  always  gained  by  a  sacri 
fice  of  what  is  agreeable.  Think  of  the  picturesque  scen 
ery,  and  peasantry,  and  churches,  and  ceremonials  in  Italy, 
and  what  a  perfect  scattering  and  shattering  of  all  such 
illusions  would  be  made  by  a  practical,  common- sense  sys 
tem  of  republican  government,  that  would  make  the  people 
thrifty,  prosperous,  and  happy !  The  good  is  not  always 
the  beautiful." 

"Yes,"  said  Bolton  to  Mr.  Selby,  "and  you  Liberals  in 
England  are  assuredly  doing  your  best  to  bring  on  the  very 
state  of  society  which  produces  the  faults  that  annoy  you 
here.  The  reign  of  the  great  average  masses  never  can 
be  so  agreeable  to  taste  as  that  of  the  cultured  few." 

But  we  will  not  longer  follow  a  conversation  which  was 
kept  up  till  a  late  hour  around  the  blazing  hearth.  The 
visit  was  one  of  those  happy  ones  in  which  a  man  enters  a 
house  a  stranger  and  leaves  it  a  friend.  When  all  were 
gone,  Harry  and  Eva  sat  talking  it  over  by  the  decaying 
brands. 

"Harry,  you  venturesome  creature,  how  dared  you  send 
such  a  company  in  upon  me  on  washing-day  ? " 

"Because,  my  dear,  I  knew  you  were  the  one  woman  in 
a  thousand  that  could  face  an  emergency  and  never  lose 
either  temper  or  presence  of  mind;  and  you  see  I  was 
right." 

"But  it  isn't  me  that  you  should  praise,  Harry;  it's 
my  poor,  good  Mary.  Just  think  how  patiently  she  turned 


280  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

out  of  her  way  and  changed  all  her  plans,  and  worked  and 
contrived  for  me,  when  her  poor  old  heart  was  breaking! 
I  must  run  up  now  and  say  how  much  I  thank  her  for 
making  everything  go  off  so  well. " 

Eva  tapped  softly  at  the  door  of  Mary's  room.  There 
was  no  answer.  She  opened  it  softly.  Mary  was  kneeling 
with  clasped  hands  before  her  crucifix,  and  praying  softly 
and  earnestly;  so  intent  that  she  did  not  hear  Eva  coming 
in.  Eva  waited  a  moment,  and  then  kneeled  down  beside 
her  and  softly  put  her  arm  around  her. 

"Oh,  dear,  Miss  Eva!"  said  Mary,  "my  heart's  just 
breaking. " 

"I  know  it,  I  know  it,  my  poor  Mary." 

"It's  so  cold  and  dark  outdoors,  and  where  is  she?" 
said  Mary,  with  a  shudder.  "Oh,  I  wish  I  'd  been  kinder 
to  her,  and  not  scolded  her." 

"Oh,  dear  Mary,  don't  reproach  yourself;  you  did  it  for 
the  best.  We  will  pray  for  her,  and  the  dear  Father  will 
liear  us,  I  know  he  will.  The  Good  Shepherd  will  go 
after  her  and  find  her." 


CHAPTER   XXXII 

A    MISTRESS    WITHOUT    A    MAID 

[Eva  to  Harry's  Mother.] 

VALLEY  OF  HUMILIATION. 

DEAR  MOTHER,  —  I  have  kept  you  well  informed  of 
all  our  prosperities  in  undertaking  and  doing;  how  every 
thing  we  have  set  our  hand  to  has  turned  out  beautifully ; 
how  "our  evenings"  have  been  a  triumphant  success;  and 
how  we  and  our  neighbors  are  all  coming  into  the  spirit  of 
love  and  unity,  getting  acquainted,  mingling  and  melting 
into  each  other's  sympathy  and  knowledge.  I  have  had 
the  most  delightful  run  of  compliments  about  my  house, 
as  so  bright,  so  cheerful,  so  social  and  cosy,  and  about  my 
skill  in  managing  to  always  have  everything  so  nice,  and 
in  entertaining  with  so  little  parade  and  trouble,  that  I 
really  began  to  plume  myself  on  something  very  uncom 
mon  in  the  way  of  what  Aunt  Prissy  Diamond  calls  "fac 
ulty."  Well,  you  know,  next  in  course  after  the  Palace 
Beautiful  comes  the  Valley  of  Humiliation  —  whence  my 
letter  is  dated  —  where  I  am  at  this  present  writing. 
Honest  old  John  Bunyan  says  that,  although  people  do 
not  descend  into  this  place  with  a  very  good  grace,  but 
with  many  a  sore  bruise  and  tumble,  yet  the  air  thereof  is 
mild  and  refreshing,  and  many  sweet  flowers  grow  here 
that  are  not  found  in  more  exalted  regions. 

I  have  not  found  the  flowers  yet,  and  feel  only  the  sore 
ness  and  bruises  of  the  descent.  To  drop  the  metaphor: 
I  have  been  now  three  days  conducting  my  establishment 
without  Mary,  and  with  no  other  assistant  than  her  daugh- 


282  WE   AND    OUR   NEIGHBORS 

ter,  the  little  ten-year-old  midget  I  told  you  about.  You 
remember  about  poor  Maggie,  and  what  we  were  trying  to 
do  for  her,  and  how  she  fled  from  our  house  ?  Well,  Jim 
Fellows  set  the  detectives  upon  her  track,  and  the  last 
that  was  heard  of  her,  she  had  gone  up  to  Poughkeepsie ; 
and,  as  Mary  has  relations  somewhere  in  that  neighbor 
hood,  she  thought,  perhaps,  if  she  went  immediately,  she 
should  find  her  among  them.  The  dear,  faithful  soul  felt 
dreadfully  about  leaving  me,  knowing  that,  as  to  all  practi 
cal  matters,  I  am  a  poor  "sheep  in  the  wilderness;"  and 
if  I  had  made  any  opposition,  or  argued  against  it,  I 
suppose  that  I  might  have  kept  her  from  going,  but  I  did 
not.  I  did  all  I  could  to  hurry  her  off,  and  talked  hero 
ically  about  how  I  would  try  to  get  along  without  her, 
and  little  Midge  swelled  with  importance,  and  seemed  to 
long  for  the  opportunity  to  display  her  latent  powers;  and 
so  Mary  departed  suddenly  one  morning,  and  left  me  in 
possession  of  the  field. 

The  situation  was  the  graver  that  we  had  a  gentleman 
invited  to  dinner,  and  Mary  had  not  time  even  to  stuff  the 
turkey,  as  she  had  to  hurry  off  to  the  cars.  "What  will 
you  do,  Miss  Eva  ? "  she  said  ruefully ;  and  I  said  cheer 
ily,  "Oh,  never  fear,  Mary;  I  never  found  a  situation 
yet  that  I  was  not  adequate  to,"  and  I  saw  her  out  of  the 
door,  and  then  turned  to  my  kitchen  and  my  turkey.  My 
soul  was  fired  with  energy.  I  would  prove  to  Harry  what 
a  wonderful  and  unexplored  field  of  domestic  science  lay  in 
my  little  person.  Everything  should  be  so  perfect  that 
the  absence  of  Mary  should  not  even  be  suspected! 

So  I  came  airily  upon  the  stage  of  action,  and  took  an 
observation  of  the  field.  This  turkey  should  be  stuffed, 
of  course;  turkeys  always  were  stuffed;  but  what  with? 
How  very  shadowy  and  indefinite  my  knowledge  grew,  as 
I  contemplated  those  yawning  rifts  and  caverns  which  were 
to  be  filled  up  with  something  savory  —  I  didn't  precisely 


A   MISTRESS   WITHOUT  A   MAID  283 

know  what!  But  the  cook-book  came  to  my  relief.  I 
read  and  studied  the  directions,  and  proceeded  to  explore 
for  the  articles.  "Midge,  where  does  your  mother  keep 
the  sweet  herbs  ?  "  Midge  was  prompt  and  alert  in  her 
researches  and  brought  them  to  light,  and  I  proceeded 
gravely  to  measure  and  mix,  while  Midge,  delighted  at  the 
opportunity  of  exploring  forbidden  territory,  began  a  mis 
cellaneous  system  of  rummaging  and  upsetting  in  Mary's 
orderly  closets.  "Here  's  the  mustard,  ma'am,  and  here's 
the  French  mustard,  and  here  's  the  vanilla,  and  the  cloves 
is  here,  and  the  nutmeg-grater,  ma'am,  and  the  nutmegs  is 
here ; "  and  so  on,  till  I  was  half  crazy. 

"  Midge,  put  all  those  things  back  and  shut  the  cupboard 
door,  and  stop  talking,"  said  I  decisively.  And  Midge 
obeyed. 

"Now,"  said  I,  "I  wonder  where  Mary  keeps  her  nee 
dles  ;  this  must  be  sewed  up. " 

Midge  was  on  hand  again,  and  pulled  forth  needles,  and 
thread,  and  twine,  and  after  some  pulling  and  pinching  of 
my  fingers,  and  some  unsuccessful  struggles  with  the  stiff 
wings  that  wouldn't  lie  down,  and  tl^ie  stiff  legs  that  would 
kick  out,  my  turkey  was  fairly  bound  and  captive,  and 
handsomely  awaiting  his  destiny. 

"Now,  Midge,"  said  I,  triumphant,  "open  the  oven 
door!" 

"Oh!  please,  ma'am,  it's  only  ten  o'clock.  You  don't 
want  to  roast  him  all  day." 

Sure  enough;  I  had  not  thought  of  that.  Our  dinner 
hour  was  five  o'clock;  and,  for  the  first  time  in  my  life, 
the  idea  of  time  as  connected  with  a  roast  turkey  rose  in 
my  head. 

"Midge,  when  does  your  mother  put  the  turkey  in?  " 

"Oh!  not  till  some  time  in  the  afternoon,"  said  Midge 
wisely. 

"  How  long  does  it  take  a  turkey  to  roast  1 "  said  I. 


284  WE   AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

"Oh!  a  good  while,"  said  Midge  confidently,  " 'cordin' 
as  how  large  they  is." 

I  turned  to  my  cook-book,  and  saw  that  so  much  time 
must  be  given  to  so  many  pounds;  but  I  had  not  the  re 
motest  idea  how  many  pounds  there  were  in  the  turkey. 
So  I  set  Midge  to  cleaning  the  silver,  and  ran  across  the 
way,  to  get  light  of  Miss  Dorcas. 

How  thankful  I  was  for  the  neighborly  running-in  terms 
on  which  I  stood  with  my  old  ladies;  it  stood  me  in  good 
stead  in  this  time  of  need.  I  ran  in  at  the  back  door  and 
found  Miss  Dorcas  in  her  kitchen,  presiding  over  some 
special  Eleusinean  mysteries  in  the  way  of  preserves.  The 
good  soul  had  on  a  morning- cap  calculated  to  strike  terror 
into  an  inexperienced  beholder,  but  her  face  beamed  with 
benignity,  and  she  entered  into  the  situation  at  once. 

"Cookery  books  are  not  worth  a  fly  in  such  cases,"  she 
remarked  sententiously.  "You  must  use  your  judgment." 

"But  what  if  you  have  n't  got  any  judgment  to  use?" 
said  I.  "I  have  n't  a  bit." 

"Well,  then,  dear  child,  you  must  use  Dinah's,  as  I  do. 
Dinah  can  tell  to  a  T  how  long  a  turkey  takes  to  roast, 
by  looking  at  it.  Here,  Dinah,  run  over,  and  '  talk  tur 
key  '  to  Mrs.  Henderson." 

Dinah  went  back  with  me,  boiling  over  with  giggle. 
She  laughed  so  immoderately  over  my  turkey  that  I  began 
to  fear  I  had  made  some  disgraceful  blunder;  but  I  was 
relieved  by  a  facetious  poke  in  the  side  which  she  'gave 
me,  declaring :  — 

"Lord's  sakes  alive,  Mis'  Henderson,  you 's  dun  it  like 
a  bawn  cook,  you  has.  Land  sake!  but  it  just  kills  me 
to  see  ladies  work,"  she  added,  going  into  another  chuckle 
of  delight.  "Waal,  now,  Mis'  Henderson,  dat  'ere  tur 
key  '11  want  a  mighty  sight  of  doin'.  Tell  ye  what  —  I  'II 
come  over  and  put  him  in  for  you,  'bout  three  o'clock," 
she  concluded,  giving  me  a  matronizing  pat  on  the  back. 


A   MISTRESS   WITHOUT  A  MAID  285 

"Besides,"  said  little  Midge  wisely,  "there's  all  the 
chambers  and  the  parlors  to  do." 

Sure  enough !  I  had  forgotten  that  beds  do  not  make 
themselves,  nor  chambers  arrange  themselves,  as  always 
had  seemed  to  me  before.  But  I  went  at  the  work,  with 
little  Midge  for  handmaid,  guiding  her  zeal  and  directing 
and  superintending  her  somewhat  erratic  movements,  till 
bedrooms,  parlors,  house,  were  all  in  wonted  order.  In 
the  course  of  this  experience,  it  occurred  to  me  a  number 
of  times  how  much  activity,  and  thought,  and  care,  and 
labor  of  some  one  went  to  make  the  foundation  on  which 
the  habitual  ease,  quiet,  and  composure  of  my  daily  life  was 
built ;  and  I  mentally  voted  Mary  a  place  among  the  saints. 

Punctually  to  appointment  Dinah  came  over  and  lifted 
my  big  turkey  into  the  oven,  and  I  shut  the  door  on  him, 
and  thought  my  dinner  was  fairly  under  way.  But  the 
kitchen  stove,  which  always  seemed  to  me  the  most  matter- 
of-fact,  simple,  self-evident  verity  in  nature,  suddenly 
became  an  inscrutable  labyrinth  of  mystery  in  my  eyes. 
After  putting  in  my  turkey,  I  went  on  inspecting  my 
china-closet,  and  laying  out  napkins,  and  peering  into 
preserve  jars,  till  half  an  hour  had  passed,  when  I  thought 
of  taking  a  peep  at  him.  There  he  lay,  scarcely  warmed 
through,  with  a  sort  of  chilly  whiteness  upon  him. 

"Midge,"  I  cried,  "why  don't  this  fire  burn?  This 
turkey  isn't  cooking." 

"Oh,  dear  me,  mum!  you  've  forgot  the  drafts  is  shut," 
said  Midge,  just  as  if  I  had  ever  thought  of  drafts,  or  sup 
posed  there  was  any  craft  or  mystery  about  them. 

Midge,  however,  proceeded  to  open  certain  mysterious 
slides,  whereat  the  stove  gave  a  purr  of  satisfaction,  which 
soon  broadened  into  a  roar. 

"That  will  do  splendidly,"  said  I;  "and  now,  Midge, 
go  and  get  the  potatoes  and  turnips,  peel  them,  and  have 
them  ready." 


286  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

The  stove  roared  away  merrily,  and  I  went  on  with  my 
china-closet  arrangements,  laying  out  a  dessert,  till  sud 
denly  I  smelled  a  smell  of  burning.  I  went  into  the 
kitchen,  and  found  the  stove  raging  like  a  great  red  dragon, 
and  the  top  glowing  hot,  and,  opening  the  oven  door,  a 
puff  of  burning  fume  flew  in  my  face. 

"Oh,  Midge,  Midge,"  I  cried,  "what  is  the  matter? 
The  turkey  is  all  burning  up !  "  and  Midge  came  running 
from  the  cellar. 

"  Why,  mother  shuts  them  slides  part  up,  when  the  fire 
gets  a-going  too  fast, "  said  }  Midge  —  "  so ;  "  and  Midge 
manipulated  the  mysterious  slides,  and  the  roaring  monster 
grew  calm. 

But  my  turkey  needed  to  be  turned,  and  I  essayed  to 
turn  him  —  a  thing  which  seems  the  simplest  thing  in  life, 
till  one  tries  it  and  becomes  convinced  of  the  utter  deprav 
ity  of  matter.  The  wretched  contrary  bird  of  evil !  how 
he  slipped  and  slid,  and  went  every  way  but  the  right 
way !  How  I  wrestled  with  him,  getting  hot  and  combat 
ive,  outwardly  and  inwardly !  How  I  burned  my  hand  on 
the  oven  door,  till  finally  over  he  flounced,  spattering  hot 
gravy  all  over  my  hand  and  the  front  breadth  of  my  dress. 
I  had  a  view  then  that  I  never  had  had  before  of  the 
amount  of  Christian  patience  needed  by  a  cook.  I  really 
got  into  quite  a  vengeful  state  of  feeling  with  the  monster, 
and  shut  the  oven  door  with  a  malignant  bang,  as  Hensel 
and  Gretel  did  when  they  burned  the  old  witch  in  the  fairy 
story. 

But  now  came  the  improvising  of  my  dessert!  I  had 
projected  an  elegant  arrangement  of  boiled  custard,  with 
sponge-cake  at  the  bottom,  and  feathery  snow  of  egg- froth 
on  top  —  a  showy  composition,  which,  when  displayed  in 
a  high  cut-glass  dish,  strikingly  ornaments  the  table.  I 
felt  entirely  equal  to  boiled  custard.  I  had  seen  Mary 
make  it  dozens  of  times.  I  knew  just  how  many  eggs 


A  MISTRESS   WITHOUT  A  MAID  287 

went  to  the  quart  of  milk,  and  that  it  must  be  stirred 
gently  all  the  time,  in  a  kettle  of  boiling  water,  till  the 
golden  moment  of  projection  arrived.  So  I  stirred  and 
stirred,  with  a  hot  face  and  smarting  hands;  for  the  burned 
places  burned  so  much  worse  in  the  heat  as  to  send  a  doubt 
through  my  mind  whether  I  ever  should  have  grace  enough 
to  be  a  martyr  at  the  stake  for  any  faith  or  cause  what 
ever. 

But  I  bore  all  for  the  sake  of  my  custard;  when,  oh! 
from  some  cruel,  mysterious,  unexplained  cause,  just  at 
the  last  moment,  the  golden  creamy  preparation  suddenly 
separated  into  curd  and  whey,  leaving  my  soul  desolate 
within  me.  What  had  I  done?  What  had  I  omitted? 
I  was  sure  every  rite  and  form  of  the  incantation  had  been 
performed  just  as  I  had  seen  Mary  do  it  hundreds  of  times; 
yet  hers  proved  a  rich,  smooth,  golden  cream,  and  mine 
unsightly  curd  and  watery  whey !  The  niysteriousness  of 
natural  laws  was  never  so  borne  in  upon  me.  There  is  a 
kink  in  every  one  of  them,  meant  to  puzzle  us.  In  my 
distress  I  ran  across  to  the  back  door  again  and  consulted 
Dinah. 

"What  can  be  the  matter,  Dinah?  My  custard  won't 
come,  when  I  've  mixed  everything  exactly  right,  according 
to  the  rules;  and  it 's  all  turned  to  curd  and  whey !  " 

"Land  sake,  missis,  it's  jest  cause  it  will  do  so  some 
times  —  dat  'ere  's  de  reason,"  said  Dinah,  with  the  certainty 
of  a  philosopher.  "Soft  custard  is  jest  de  aggravatin'est 
thing!  you  don't  never  know  when  it's  goin'  to  be  con 
trary  and  flare  up  agin  you." 

"Well,  Dinah,"  said  Miss  Dorcas,  "you  try  your  luck 
with  some  of  our  fresh  morning's  milk  —  you  always  have 
luck  —  and  carry  it  over  to  Mrs.  Henderson. " 

The  dear  old  angel!  No  morning-cap,  however  fearful, 
could  disguise  her.  I  fell  upon  her  neck  and  kissed  her, 
then  and  there,  she  was  so  good !  She  is  the  best  old  soul, 


288  WE  AND   OUE   NEIGHBORS 

mother,  and  I  feel  proud  of  having  discovered  her  worth. 
I  told  her  how  I  did  hope  some  time  she  would  let  me  do 
something  for  her,  and  we  had  quite  a  time,  pledging  our 
friendship  to  each  other  in  the  kitchen. 

Well,  Dinah  brought  over  the  custard,  thick  and  smooth, 
and  I  arranged  it  in  my  high  cut-glass  dish  and  covered  it , 
with  foamy  billows  of  whites  of  egg  tipped  off  with  spar 
kles  of  jelly,  so  that  Dinah  declared  that  it  looked  as  well 
"as  dem  perfectioners  could  do  it;  "  and  she  stayed  to  take 
my  turkey  out  for  me  at  the  dinner  hour;  and  I,  remem 
bering  my  past  struggle  and  burned  ringers,  was  only  too 
glad  to  humbly  accept  her  services. 

Dinah  is  not  a  beauty  by  any  of  the  laws  of  art,  but 
she  did  look  beautiful  to  me  when  I  left  her  getting  up 
the  turkey,  and  retired  to  wash  my  hot  cheeks  and  burning 
hands  and  make  my  toilet;  for  I  was  to  appear  serene 
and  smiling  in  a  voluminous  robe,  and  with  unsullied  rib 
bons,  like  the  queen  of  the  interior,  whose  morning  had 
been  passed  in  luxurious  ease  and  ignorant  of  care. 

To  say  the  truth,  dear  mother,  I  was  so  tired  and  worn 
out  with  the  little  I  had  done  that  I  would  much  rather 
have  lain  down  for  a  nap  than  to  have  enacted  the  part  of 
charming  hostess.  Talk  about  women  meeting  men  with 
a  smile  when  they  come  in  from  the  cares  of  business!  I 
reflected  that,  if  this  sort  of  thing  went  on  much  longer, 
Harry  would  have  to  meet  me  with  a  smile,  and  a  good 
many  smiles,  to  keep  up  my  spirits  at  this  end  of  -the 
lever.  However,  it  was  but  for  once;  I  summoned  my 
energies  and  was  on  time,  nicely  dressed,  serene  and  fresh 
as  if  nothing  had  happened,  and  we  went  through  our  din 
ner  without  a  breakdown,  for  little  Midge  was  a  well- 
trained  waiter  and  did  heroically. 

Only,  when  I  came  to  pour  the  coffee  after  dinner,  I 
was  astonished  at  its  unusual  appearance.  Our  clear, 
limpid  golden  coffee  had  always  been  one  of  our  strong 


A  MISTRESS   WITHOUT   A   MAID  289 

points,  and  one  on  which  I  had  often  received  special  com 
pliments.  People  had  said,  "How  do  you  contrive  to 
always  have  such  coffee  1  "  and  I  had  accepted  with  a  grace 
ful  humility,  declaring,  as  is  proper  in  such  cases,  that  I 
was  not  aware  of  any  particular  merit  in  it,  etc. 

The  fact  is,  I  never  had  thought  about  coffee  at  all.  I 
had  seen,  as  I  supposed,  how  Mary  made  it,  and  never 
doubted  that  mine  would  be  like  hers;  so  that  when  a 
black,  thick,  cloudy  liquid  poured  out  of  my  coffeepot,  I 
was,  I  confess,  appalled. 

Harry,  like  a  good  fellow,  took  no  notice,  and  covered 
my  defect  by  beginning  an  animated  conversation  on  the 
merits  of  the  last  book  our  gentleman  had  published.  The 
good  man  forgot  all  about  his  coffee  in  his  delight  at  the 
obliging  things  Harry  was  saying,  and  took  off  the  muddy 
draught  with  a  cheerful  zeal,  as  if  it  was  so  much  nectar. 

But,  on  our  way  to  the  parlor,  Harry  contrived  to 
whisper :  — 

"  What  has  got  into  Mary  about  her  coffee  to-day  1 " 

"Oh,  Harry,"  I  replied,  "Mary's  gone.  I  had  to  get 
the  dinner  all  alone." 

"  You  did !  You  wonderful  little  puss !  "  said  the  good 
boy.  " Never  mind  the  coffee !  Better  luck  next  time." 

And,  after  we  were  alone  that  night,  Harry  praised  and 
admired  me,  and  I  got  out  the  cookery  book  to  see  how  I 
ought  to  have  made  my  coffee. 

The  directions,  however,  were  not  near  as  much  to  the 
point  as  the  light  I  got  from  Dinah,  who  came  across  on 
a  gossiping  expedition  to  our  kitchen  that  evening,  and  to 
whom  I  propounded  the  inquiry,  "Why  wasn't  my  coffee 
clear  and  nice  like  Mary's?  " 

"Land  sakes,  Mis'  Henderson,  ye  didn't  put  in  no 
fish-skin,  nor  nothing  to  cl'ar  it." 

"No.     I  never  heard  of  such  a  thing." 

"Some  uses  fish-skin,  and  some  takes  an  egg,"  contin- 


290  WE  AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

ued  Dinah.  "  When  eggs  is  cheap,  I  takes  an  egg.  Don't 
nobody  have  no  cFarer  coffee  'n  mine." 

I  made  Dinah  illustrate  her  theme  by  one  practical  ex 
periment,  after  the  manner  of  chemical  lecturers,  and  then 
I  was  mistress  of  the  situation.  Coffee  was  a  vanquished 
realm,  a  subjugated  province,  the  power  whereof  was  vested 
henceforth,  not  in  Mary,  but  myself. 

Since  then,  we  have  been  anxiously  looking  for  Mary 
every  day;  for  Thursday  is  coming  round,  and  how  are  we 
to  have  "  our  evening  "  without  her  1  Alice  and  Angie  are 
both  staying  with  me  now  to  help  me,  and  on  the  whole 
we  have  pretty  good  times,  though  there  isn't  any  surplus 
of  practical  knowledge  among  us.  We  have  all  rather 
plumed  ourselves  on  being  sensible  domestic  girls.  We 
can  all  make  lovely  sponge-cake,  and  Angie  excels  in 
chocolate  caramels,  and  Alice  had  a  great  success  in  currant 
jelly.  But  the  thousand  little  practical  points  that  meet 
one  in  getting  the  simplest  meal,  nobody  knows  till  he 
tries.  For  instance,  we  fried  our  sausages  in  butter,  the 
first  morning,  to  the  great  scandal  of  little  Midge,  who 
instructed  us  gravely  that  they  were  made  to  fry  them 
selves. 

Since  "  our  boys  "  have  found  out  that  we  are  sole  mis 
tresses  of  the  kitchen,  they  often  drop  in  to  lighten  our 
labors  and  to  profess  their  own  culinary  accomplishments. 
Jim  Fellows  declares  that  nobody  can  equal  him  in  coffee, 
and  that  he  can  cook  a  steak  with  tomato  sauce  in  a  manner 
unequaled;  and  Bolton  professes  a  peculiar  skill  in  an 
omelette;  so  we  agreed  yesterday  to  let  them  try  their 
hand,  and  we  had  a  great  frolic  over  the  getting  up  of  a 
composition  dinner.  Each  of  us  took  a  particular  thing  to 
be  responsible  for;  and  so  we  got  up  a  picnic  performance, 
which  we  ate  with  great  jollity.  Dr.  Campbell  came  in 
with  a  glass  coffee-making  machine  by  which  coffee  was  to 
be  made  on  table  for  the  amusement  of  the  guests  as  well 


A  MISTRESS   WITHOUT   A  MAID  291 

as  for  the  gratification  of  appetite;  and  he  undertook, 
for  his  part,  to  engineer  it.  Altogether  we  had  a  capital 
time,  and  more  fun  than  if  we  had  got  the  dinner  under 
the  usual  auspices;  and,  to  crown  all,  I  got  a  letter  from 
Mary  that  she  is  coming  back  to-morrow,  —  so  all 's  well 
that  ends  well.  Meanwhile,  dear  mother,  though  I  have 
burned  my  hands  and  greased  the  front  breadth  of  my  new 
winter  dress,  yet  I  have  gained  something  quite  worth 
having  by  the  experience  of  the  last  few  days. 

I  think  I  shall  have  more  patience  with  the  faults  and 
shortcomings  of  the  servants  after  this;  and  if  the  custard 
is  a  failure,  or  the  meat  is  burned,  or  the  coffee  doesn't 
come  perfectly  clear,  I  shall  remember  that  she  is  a  sister 
woman  of  like  passions  with  myself,  and  perhaps  trying 
to  do  her  very  best  when  she  fails,  just  as  I  was  when  I 
failed.  I  am  quite  sure  that  I  shall  be  a  better  mistress 
for  having  served  an  apprenticeship  as  a  maid. 

So  good-by,  dear  mother. 

Your  loving  EVA. 


CHAPTEE   XXXIII 

A    FOUR-FOOTED    PRODIGAL 

THERE  was  dismay  and  confusion  in  the  old  Vanderhey- 
den  house,  this  evening.  Mrs.  Betsey  sat  abstracted  at 
her  tea,  as  one  refusing  to  be  comforted.  The  chair  on 
which  Jack  generally  sat  alert  and  cheerful  at  meal  times 
was  a  vacant  chair,  and  poor  soft-hearted  Mrs.  Betsey's 
eyes  filled  with  tears  every  time  she  looked  that  way. 
Jack  had  run  away  that  forenoon  and  had  not  been  seen 
about  house  or  premises  since. 

"Come  now,  Betsey,"  said  Miss  Dorcas,  "eat  your  toast; 
you  really  are  silly." 

"I  can't  help  it,  Dorcas;  it 's  getting  dark  and  he  does  n't 
come.  Jack  never  did  stay  out  so  long  before;  something 
must  have  happened  to  him." 

"Oh,  you  go  'way,  Mis'  Betsey!"  broke  in  Dinah,  with 
the  irreverent  freedom  which  she  generally  asserted  to  her 
self  in  the  family  councils,  "never  you  fear  but  what 
Jack  '11  be  back  soon  enough  —  too  soon  for  most  folks;  he 
knows  which  side  his  bread  's  buttered,  dat-dog  does.  Bad 
penny  allers  sure  to  come  home  'fore  you  want  it." 

"And  there  's  no  sort  of  reason,  Betsey,  why  you 
should  n't  exercise  self-control  and  eat  your  supper,"  pursued 
Miss  Dorcas  authoritatively.  "A  well-regulated  mind"  — 

"You  needn't  talk  to  me  about  a  well-regulated  mind, 
Dorcas,"  responded  Mrs.  Betsey  in  an  exacerbated  tone. 
"I  haven't  got  a  well-regulated  mind  and  never  had,  and 
never  shall  have;  and  reading  Mrs.  Chapone  and  Dr. 
Watts  on  the  Mind,  and  all  the  rest  of  them,  never  did 


A  FOUR-FOOTED   PRODIGAL  293 

me  any  good.  I  'm  one  of  that  sort  that  when  I  'm  anxious 
I  am  anxious;  so  it  don't  do  any  good  to  talk  that  way  to 
me." 

"Well,  you  know,  Betsey,  if  you'll  only  be  reasonable, 
that  Jack  always  has  come  home." 

"And  good  reason,"  chuckled  Dinah.  "Don't  he  know 
when  he's  well  off1?  you  jest  bet  he  does.  I  know  jest 
where  he  is;  he  's  jest  off  a-gallivantin'  and  a-prancin'  and 
a-dancin'  now  'long  o'  dern  low  dogs  in  Mower  Street,  and 
he  '11  come  back  bimeby  srnellin'  'miff  to  knock  ye  down, 
and  I  shall  jest  hev  the  washin'  on  him,  that's  what  I 
shall;  and  if  I  don't  give  him  sech  a  soapin'  and  scrubbin' 
as  he  never  hed,  I  tell  you !  So  you  jest  eat  your  toast, 
Mis'  Betsey,  and  take  no  thought  for  de  morrer,  Scriptur' 
says." 

This  cheerful  picture,  presented  in  Dinah's  overpower- 
ingly  self-confident  way,  had  some  effect  on  Mrs.  Betsey, 
who  wiped  her  eyes  and  finished  her  slice  of  toast  without 
further  remonstrance. 

"Dinah,  if  you're  sure  he's  down  on  Mower  Street, 
you  might  go  and  look  him  up,  after  tea,"  she  added,  after 
long  reflection. 

"Oh,  well,  when  my  dishes  is  done  up,  ef  Jack 
ain't  come  round,  why,  I  '11  take  a  look  arter  him,"  quoth 
Dinah.  "I  don't  hanker  arter  no  dog  in  a  gineral  way, 
but  since  you  've  got  sot  on  Jack,  why,  have  him  you 
must.  Dogs  is  nothin'  but  a  plague;  for  my  part  I 's  glad 
there  won't  be  no  dogs  in  heaven." 

"What  do  you  know  about  that?"  said  Mrs.  Betsey, 
with  spirit. 

"Know?  "  said  Dinah.  "Hain't  I  heard  my  Bible  read 
in  Eev'lations  all  'bout  de  golden  city,  and  how  it  says, 
'  Widout  are  dogs  '  ?  Don't  no  dogs  walk  de  golden  streets, 
now  I  tell  you;  got  Bible  on  dat  ar.  Jack  '11  hev  to  take  his 
time  in  dis  world,  for  he  won't  get  in  dere  a-prornenadinV 


294  WE  AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

"Well  then,  Dinah,  we  must  make  the  most  we  can  of 
him  here,"  pursued  Miss  Dorcas,  "and  so,  after  you've  done 
your  dishes,  I  wish  you  'd  go  out  and  look  him  up.  You 
know  you  can  find  him,  if  you  only  set  your  mind  to  it." 

"To  think  of  it!  "  said  Mrs.  Betsey.  "I  had  just  taken 
such  pains  with  him;  washed  him  up  in  nice  warm  water, 
with  scented  soap,  and  combed  him  with  a  fine-tooth  comb 
till  there  was  n't  a  flea  on  him,  and  tied  a  handsome  pink 
ribbon  round  his  neck,  because  I  was  going  to  take  him 
over  to  Mrs.  Henderson's  to  call,  this  afternoon;  and  just 
as  I  got  him  all  perfectly  arranged,  out  he  slipped,  and 
that 's  the  last  of  him." 

"I  '11  warrant!  "  said  Dinah,  "and  won't  he  trail  dat  ar 
pink  ribbon  through  all  sorts  o'  nastiness,  and  come  home 
smellin'  wus 'n  a  sink  drain!  Dogs  hes  total  depravity, 
and  hes  it  hard;  it's  no  use  tryin'  to  make  Christians  on 
'em.  But  I  '11  look  Jack  up,  never  you  fear.  I  '11  bring 
him  home,  see  if  I  don't,"  and  Dinah  went  out  with  an 
air  of  decision  that  carried  courage  to  Mrs.  Betsey's  heart. 

"Come,  now,"  said  Miss  Dorcas,  "we'll  wash  up  the 
china,  and  then,  you  know,  it's  Thursday  —  we'll  dress 
and  go  across  to  Mrs.  Henderson's  and  have  a  pleasant 
evening;  and  by  the  time  we  come  back  Jack '11  be  here, 
I  dare  say.  Never  mind  looking  out  the  window  after 
him  now,"  she  added,  seeing  Mrs.  Betsey  peering  wistfully 
through  the  blinds  up  and  down  the  street. 

"People  talk  as  if  it  were  silly  to  love  dogs,"  said  Mrs. 
Betsey  in  an  injured  tone.  "I  don't  see  why  it  is.  It 
may  be  better  to  have  a  baby,  but  if  you  have  n't  got  a 
baby,  and  have  got  a  dog,  I  don't  see  why  you  shouldn't 
love  that;  and  Jack  was  real  loving,  too,"  she  added,  "and 
such  company  for  me;  he  seemed  like  a  reasonable  crea 
ture;  and  you  were  fond  of  him,  Dorcas,  you  just  know 
you  were." 

"Of  course,  I'm  very  fond  of  Jack,"  said  Miss  Dorcas 


A  FOUR-FOOTED   PRODIGAL  295 

cheerfully ;  "  but  I  'm  not  going  to  make  myself  miserable 
about  him.  I  know,  of  course,  he  '11  come  back  in  good 
time.  But  here  's  Dinah,  bringing  the  water.  Come  now, 
let 's  do  up  the  china  —  here  's  your  towel  —  and  then  you 
shall  put  on  that  new  cap  Mrs.  Henderson  arranged  for 
you,  and  go  over  and  let  her  see  you  in  it.  It  was  so  very 
thoughtful  in  dear  Mrs.  Henderson  to  do  that  cap  for  you; 
and  she  said  the  color  was  very  becoming." 

"She  is  a  dear,  sweet  little  woman,"  said  Mrs.  Betsey; 
"and  that  sister  of  hers,  Miss  Angelique,  looks  like  her, 
and  is  so  lovely.  She  talked  with  me  ever  so  long,  the 
last  time  we  were  there.  She  is  n't  like  some  young  girls, 
she  can  see  something  to  like  in  an  old  woman." 

Poor  good  Miss  Dorcas  had,  for  the  most  part,  a  very 
exalted  superiority  to  any  toilet  vanities;  but,  if  the  truth 
were  to  be  told,  she  was  moved  to  an  unusual  degree  of 
indulgence  towards  Mrs.  Betsey  by  the  suppressed  fear  that 
something  grave  might  have  befallen  the  pet  of  the  house 
hold.  In  a  sort  of  vague  picture,  there  rose  up  before  her 
the  old  days,  when  it  was  not  a  dog,  but  a  little  child,  that 
filled  the  place  in  that  desolate  heart.  When  there  had 
been  a  patter  of  little  steps  in  those  stiff  and  silent  rooms; 
and  questions  of  little  shoes,  and  little  sashes,  and  little 
embroidered  robes,  had  filled  the  mother's  heart.  And 
then  there  had  been  in  the  house  the  racket  and  willful 
noise  of  a  schoolboy,  with  his  tops,  and  his  skates,  and 
his  books  and  tasks;  and  then  there  had  been  the  gay 
young  man,  with  his  smoking-caps  and  cigars,  and  his  rat 
tling  talk,  and  his  coaxing,  teasing  ways;  and  then,  alas! 
had  come  bad  courses,  and  irregular  hours,  and  watchings, 
and  fears  for  one  who  refused  to  be  guided;  night-watch- 
ings  for  one  who  came  late,  and  brought  sorrow  in  his 
coming ;  till,  finally,  came  a  darker  hour,  and  a  coffin,  and 
a  funeral,  and  a  grave,  and  long  weariness  and  broken- 
heartedness,  —  a  sickness  of  the  heart  that  had  lasted  for 


296  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

years,  that  had  blanched  the  hair,  and  unstrung  the  nerves, 
and  made  the  once  pretty,  sprightly  little  woman  a  wreck. 
All  these  pictures  rose  up  silently  before  Miss  Dorcas's 
inner  eye  as  she  busied  herself  in  wiping  the  china,  and 
there  was  a  touch  of  pathos  about  her  unaccustomed  efforts 
to  awaken  her  sister's  slumbering  sensibility  to  finery,  and 
to  produce  a  diversion  in  favor  of  the  new  cap. 

The  love  of  a  pet  animal  is  something  for  which  people 
somehow  seem  called  upon  to  apologize  to  our  own  species, 
as  if  it  were  a  sort  of  'mesalliance  of  the  affections  to  be 
stow  them  on  anything  below  the  human  race;  and  yet  the 
Book  of  books,  which  reflects  most  faithfully  and  tenderly 
the  nature  of  man,  represents  the  very  height  of  cruelty 
by  the  killing  of  a  poor  man's  pet  lamb.  It  says  the  rich 
man  had  flocks  and  herds,  but  the  poor  man  had  nothing 
save  one  little  ewe  lamb,  which  he  had  brought  and  nour 
ished  up,  which  grew  up  together  with  him  and  his  chil 
dren,  which  ate  of  his  bread,  and  drank  of  his  cup,  and 
lay  in  his  bosom,  and  was  to  him  as  a  daughter.  And 
how  often  on  the  unintelligent  head  of  some  poor  loving 
animal  are  shed  the  tears  of  some  heart-sorrow;  and  their 
dumb  company,  their  unspoken  affection,  solace  some 
broken  heart  which  hides  itself  to  die  alone. 

Dogs  are  the  special  comforters  of  neglected  and  forgot 
ten  people;  and  to  hurt  a  poor  man's  dog  has  always 
seemed  to  us  a  crime  akin  to  sacrilege.  We  are  not  at  all 
sure,  either,  of  the  boasted  superiority  of  our  human  spe 
cies.  A  dog  who  lives  up  to  the  laws  of  his  being  is,  in 
our  view,  a  nobler  creature  than  a  man  who  sinks  below 
his :  he  is  certainly'  a  much  more  profitable  member  of  the 
community.  We  suggest,  moreover,  that  a  much  more 
judicious  use  could  be  made  of  the  city  dog-pound  in  thin 
ning  out  human  brutes  than  in  smothering  poor,  honest 
curs  who  always  lived  up  to  their  light  and  did  just  as  well 
as  they  knew  how. 


A   FOUR-FOOTED   PRODIGAL  297 

To  say  the  honest  truth  about  poor  Jack,  his  faults  were 
only  those  incident  to  his  having  been  originally  created  a 
dog  —  a  circumstance  for  which  he  was  in  no  way  respon 
sible.  He  was  as  warm-hearted,  loving,  demonstrative  a 
creature  as  ever  wagged  a  tail,  and  he  was  anxious  to  please 
his  mistress  to  the  best  of  his  light  and  knowledge.  But 
he  had  that  rooted  and  insuperable  objection  to  soap  and 
water,  and  that  preference  for  dirt  and  liberty,  which  is 
witnessed  also  in  young  animals  of  the  human  species,  and 
Mrs.  Betsey's  exquisite  neatness  was  a  sore  cross  and  bur 
den  to  him.  Then  his  destiny  having  made  him  of  the 
nature  of  the  flesh- eaters,  as  the  canine  race  are  generally, 
and  Miss  Dorcas  having  some  strict  dietetic  theories  in 
tended  to  keep  him  in  genteel  figure,  Jack's  allowance  of 
meat  and  bones  was  far  below  his  cravings :  and  so  he  was 
led  to  explore  neighboring  alleys,  and  to  investigate  swill- 
pails  ;  to  bring  home  and  bury  bones  in  the  Yanderheyden 
garden-plot,  which  formed  thus  a  sort  of  refrigerator  for 
the  preservation  of  his  marketing.  Then  Jack  had  his 
own  proclivities  for  society.  An  old  lady  in  a  cap,  how 
ever  caressing  and  affectionate,  could  not  supply  all  the 
social  wants  of  a  dog's  nature;  and  even  the  mixed  and 
low  company  of  Flower  Street  was  a  great  relief  to  him 
from  the  very  select  associations  and  good  behavior  to 
which  he  was  restricted  the  greater  part  of  his  time.  In 
short,  Jack,  like  the  rest  of  us,  had  his  times  when  he  was 
fairly  tired  out  of  being  good,  and  acting  the  part  of  a  cul 
tivated  drawing-room  dog;  and  then  he  reverted  with  a 
bound  to  his  freer  doggish  associates.  Such  an  impulse  is 
not  confined  to  four-footed  children  of  nature.  Rachel,  when 
mistress  of  all  the  brilliancy  and  luxury  of  the  choicest 
salon  in  Paris,  had  fits  of  longing  to  return  to  the  wild 
freedom  of  a  street  girl's  life,  and  said  that  she  felt  within 
herself  a  besoin  de  s1  encanailler.  This  expresses  just 
what  Jack  felt  when  he  went  trailing  his  rose-colored  bows 


298  WE   AND   OUK  NEIGHBORS 

into  the  society  of  Flower  Street,  little  thinking,  as  he 
lolled  his  long  pink  ribbon  of  a  tongue  jauntily  out  of  his 
mouth,  and  enjoyed  the  sensation  he  excited  among  the 
dogs  of  the  vicinity,  of  the  tears  and  anxieties  his  frolic 
was  creating  at  home.  But,  in  due  time,  the  china  was 
washed,  and  Mrs.  Betsey  entered  with  some  interest  into 
preparations  for  the  evening. 

Miss  Dorcas  and  Mrs.  Betsey  were  the  earliest  at  the 
Henderson  fireside,  and  they  found  Alice,  Angelique,  and 
Eva  busy  arranging  the  tea-table  in  the  corner. 

"Oh,  don't  you  think,  Miss  Dorcas,  Mary  hasn't  come 
back  yet,  and  we  girls  are  managing  all  alone,"  said  An 
gelique;  "you  can't  think  what  fun  it  is!  " 

"Why  didn't  you  tell  me,  Mrs.  Henderson?  "  said  Miss 
Dorcas.  "I  would  have  sent  Dinah  over  to  make  your 
coffee." 

"Oh,  dear  me,  Miss  Dorcas,  Dinah  gave  me  private  les 
sons  day  before  yesterday,"  said  Eva,  "and  from  henceforth 
I  am  personally  adequate  to  any  amount  of  coffee,  I  grow 
so  self-confident.  But  I  tried  my  hand  in  making  those 
little  biscuit  Mary  gets  up,  and  they  were  a  failure.  Mary 
makes  them  with  sour  milk  and  soda,  and  I  tried  to  do 
mine  just  like  hers.  I  can't  tell  why,  but  they  came  out 
of  the  oven  a  brilliant  grass-green  —  quite  a  preternatural 
color. " 

"Showing  that  they  were  the  work  of  a  green  hand," 
said  Angelique. 

"It  was  an  evident  reflection  on  me,"  said  Eva.  "At 
any  rate,  I  sent  to  the  bakery  for  my  biscuit  to-night,  for 
I  would  not  advertise  my  greenness  in  public." 

"But  we  are  going  to  introduce  a  novelty  this  evening," 
said  Angelique;  "to  wit:  boiled  chestnuts;  anybody  can 
cook  chestnuts." 

"Yes,"  said  Eva;  "Harry's  mother  has  just  sent  us  a 
lovely  bag  of  chestnuts,  and  we  are  going  to  present  them 


A   FOUR-FOOTED    PRODIGAL  299 

as  a  sensation.  I  think  it  will  start  all  sorts  of  poetic  and 
pastoral  reminiscences  of  lovely  fall  days,  and  boys  and 
girls  going  chestnutting  and  having  good  times;  it  will 
make  themes  for  talk." 

"By  the  bye,"  said  Angelique,  "  where 's  Jack,  Mrs. 
Benthusen  ? " 

"  Oh !  my  dear,  you  touch  a  sore  spot.  We  are  in  dis 
tress  about  Jack.  He  ran  away  this  morning,  and  we 
haven't  seen  him  all  day." 

"How  terrible!"  said  Eva.  "This  is  a  neighborhood 
matter.  Jack  is  the  dog  of  the  regiment.  We  must  all  put 
our  wits  together  to  have  him  looked  up.  Here  comes  Jim ; 
let 's  tell  him,"  continued  she,  as  Jim  Fellows  walked  up. 

"What's  up,  now?" 

"Why,  our  dog  is  missing,"  said  Eva.  "The  pride  of 
our  hearts,  the  ornament  of  our  neighborhood,  is  gone." 

"  Do  you  think  anybody  has  stolen  him  ? "  said  Alice. 

"I  shouldn't  wonder,"  said  Mrs.  Betsey;  "Jack  is  a 
dog  of  a  very  pure  breed,  and  very  valuable.  A  boy  might 
get  quite  a  sum  for  him." 

"I  '11  advertise  him  in  our  paper,"  said  Jim. 

"Thank  you,  Mr.  Fellows,"  said  Mrs.  Betsey,  with 
tears  in  her  eyes. 

"I  don't  doubt  he'll  get  back  to  you,  even  if  he  has 
been  stolen,"  said  Harry.  "I  have  known  wonderful  in 
stances  of  the  contrivance,  and  ingenuity,  and  perseverance 
of  these  creatures  in  getting  back  home." 

"Well,"  said  Jim,  "I  know  a  regiment  of  our  press 
boys  and  reporters,  who  go  all  up  and  down  the  highways 
and  byways,  alleys  and  lanes  of  New  York,  looking  into 
cracks  and  corners,  and  I  '11  furnish  them  with  a  descrip 
tion  of  Jack,  and  tell  them  I  want  him;  and  I  '11  be  bound 
we  '11  have  him  forthcoming.  There  's  some  use  in  news 
paper  boys,  now  and  then." 

And  Jim  sat  down  by  Mrs.  Betsey,  and  entered  into  the 


300  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

topic  of  Jack's  characteristics,  ways,  manners,  and  habits, 
with  an  interest  which  went  to  the  deepest  heart  of  the 
good  little  old  lady,  and  excited  in  her  bosom  the  brightest 
hopes. 

The  evening  passed  off  pleasantly.  By  this  time,  the 
habitual  comers  felt  enough  at  home  to  have  the  sort  of 
easy  enjoyment  that  a  return  to  one's  own  fireside  always 
brings. 

Alice,  Jim,  Eva,  Angelique,  and  Mr.  St.  John  discussed 
the  forthcoming  Christmas  tree  for  the  Sunday-school,  and 
made  lists  of  purchases  to  be  made  of  things  to  be  distrib 
uted  among  them. 

"Let 's  give  them  things  that  are  really  useful,"  said  St. 
John. 

"For  my  part,"  said  Eva,  "in  giving  to  such  poor  chil 
dren,  whose  mothers  have  no  time  to  entertain  them,  and 
no  money  to  buy  pretty  things,  I  feel  more  disposed  to  get 
bright,  attractive  playthings  —  dolls  with  fine,  fancy 
dresses,  and  so  on;  it  gives  a  touch  of  poetry  to  the  poor 
child's  life." 

"Well,  I've  dressed  four  dolls,"  said  Angie;  "and  I 
offer  my  services  to  dress  a  dozen  more.  My  innate  love 
of  finery  is  turned  to  good  account  here." 

"I  incline  more  to  useful  things,"  said  Alice. 

"Well,"  said  Eva,  "suppose  we  do  both,  give  each 
child  one  useful  thing  and  one  for  fancy  ? " 

"Well,"  said  Alice,  "the  shopping  for  all  this  list  of 
eighty  children  will  be  no  small  item.  Jim,  we  shall  have 
to  call  in  your  services." 

"I  'm  your  man,"  said  Jim.  "I  know  stores  where  the 
fellows  would  run  their  feet  off  to  get  a  good  word  from  us 
of  the  press.  I  shall  turn  my  influence  in  to  the  service 
of  the  church." 

"Well,"  said  Alice,  "we  shall  take  you  with  us  when 
we  go  on  our  shopping  tour." 


A  FOUR-FOOTED   PEODIGAL  301 

"I  know  a  German  firm  where  you  can  get  the  real  Ger 
man  candles,  and  glass  balls,  and  all  the  shiners  and  tin 
klers  to  glorify  your  tree,  and  a  little  angel  to  stick  on  the 
top.  A  tip-top  notice  from  me  in  the  paper  will  make 
them  shell  out  for  us  like  thunder. " 

Mr.  St.  John  opened  his  large,  thoughtful,  blue  eyes  on 
Jim  with  an  air  of  innocent  wonder.  He  knew  as  little 
of  children  and  their  ways  as  most  men,  and  was  as  help 
less  about  all  the  details  of  their  affairs  as  he  was  desirous 
of  a  good  result. 

"I  leave  it  all  in  your  hands,"  he  said  meekly;  "only, 
wherever  I  can  be  of  service,  command  me." 

It  was  probably  from  pure  accident  that  Mr.  St.  John 
as  he  spoke  looked  at  Angie,  and  that  Angie  blushed  a 
little,  and  that  Jim  Fellows  twinkled  a  wicked  glance 
across  at  Alice.  Such  accidents  are  all  the  while  happen 
ing,  just  as  flowers  are  all  the  while  springing  up  by  the 
wayside.  Wherever  man  and  woman  walk  hand  in  hand, 
the  earth  is  sown  thick  with  them. 

It  was  a  later  hour  than  usual  when  Miss  Dorcas  and 
Mrs.  Betsey  came  back  to  their  home. 

"  Is  Jack  come  home  ?  "  was  the  first  question. 

No,  Jack  had  not  come. 


CHAPTER   XXXIV 

GOING    TO    THE    BAD 

IT  was  the  week  before  Christmas,  and  all  New  York 
was  stirring  and  rustling  with  a  note  of  preparation.  Every 
shop  and  store  was  being  garnished  and  furbished  to  look 
its  best.  Christmas  trees  for  sale  lay  at  the  doors  of  gro 
ceries;  wreaths  of  ground-pine,  and  sprigs  and  branches  of 
holly,  were  on  sale,  and  selling  briskly.  Garlands  and 
anchors  and  crosses  of  green  began  to  adorn  the  windows 
of  houses,  and  were  a  merchantable  article  in  the  stores. 
The  toy-shops  were  flaming  and  flaunting  with  a  delirious 
variety  of  attractions,  and  mammas  and  papas  with  puzzled 
faces  were  crowding  and  jostling  each  other,  and  turning 
anxiously  from  side  to  side  in  the  suffocating  throng  that 
crowded  to  the  counters,  while  the  shopmen  were  too  flus 
tered  to  answer  questions,  and  so  busy  that  it  seemed  a 
miracle  when  anybody  got  any  attention.  The  country 
folk  were  pouring  into  New  York  to  do  Christmas  shop 
ping,  and  every  imaginable  kind  of  shop  had  in  its  window 
some  label  or  advertisement  or  suggestion  of  something  that 
might  answer  for  a  Christmas  gift.  Even  the  grim,  heavy 
hardware  trade  blossomed  out  into  festal  suggestions. 
Tempting  rows  of  knives  and  scissors  glittered  in  the  win 
dows;  little  chests  of  tools  for  little  masters,  with  cards 
and  labels  to  call  the  attention  of  papa  to  the  usefulness 
of  the  present.  The  confectioners'  windows  were  a  glit 
tering  mass  of  sugar  frostwork  of  every  fanciful  device,  gay 
boxes  of  bonbons,  marvelous  fabrications  of  chocolate,  and 
sugar  rainbows  in  candy  of  every  possible  device;  and 


GOING  TO   THE   BAD  303 

bewildered  crowds  of  well-dressed  purchasers  came  and  saw 
and  bought  faster  than  the  two  hands  of  the  shopmen  could 
tie  up  and  present  the  parcels.  The  grocery  stores  hung 
out  every  possible  suggestion  of  festal  cheer.  Long  strings 
of  turkeys  and  chickens,  green  bunches  of  celery,  red 
masses  of  cranberries,  boxes  of  raisins  and  drums  of  figs, 
artistically  arranged,  and  garnished  with  Christmas  greens, 
addressed  themselves  eloquently  to  the  appetite,  and  sug 
gested  that  the  season  of  festivity  was  at  hand. 

The  weather  was  stinging  cold  —  cold  enough  to  nip  one's 
toes  and  fingers,  as  one  pressed  round,  doing  Christmas 
shopping,  and  to  give  cheeks  and  nose  alike  a  tinge  of  red. 
But  nobody  seemed  to  mind  the  cold.  "Cold  as  Christ 
mas  "  has  become  a  cheery  proverb ;  and  for  prosperous, 
well-living  people,  with  cellars  full  of  coal,  with  bright 
fires  and  roaring  furnaces  and  well-tended  ranges,  a  cold 
Christmas  is  merely  one  of  the  luxuries.  Cold  is  the  con 
diment  of  the  season;  the  stinging,  smarting  sensation  is 
an  appetizing  reminder  of  how  warm  and  prosperous  and 
comfortable  are  all  within  doors. 

But  did  any  one  ever  walk  the  streets  of  New  York,  the 
week  before  Christmas,  and  try  to  imagine  himself  moving 
in  all  this  crowd  of  gayety,  outcast,  forsaken,  and  penniless  ? 
How  dismal  a  thing  is  a  crowd  in  which  you  look  in  vain 
for  one  face  that  you  know !  How  depressing  the  sense  that 
all  this  hilarity  and  abundance  and  plenty  is  not  for  you! 
Shakespeare  has  said,  "How  miserable  it  is  to  look  into 
happiness  through  another  man's  eyes  —  to  see  that  which 
you  might  enjoy  and  may  not,  to  move  in  a  world  of  gayety 
and  prosperity  where  there  is  nothing  for  you ! " 

Such  were  Maggie's  thoughts  the  day  she  went  out  from 
the  kindly  roof  that  had  sheltered  her,  and  cast  herself 
once  more  upon  the  world.  Poor  hot-hearted,  imprudent 
child,  why  did  she  run  from  her  only  friends  1  Well,  to 
answer  that  question,  we  must  think  a  little.  It  is  a  sad 


304  WE  AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

truth,  that  when  people  have  taken  a  certain  number  of 
steps  in  wrong-doing,  even  the  good  that  is  in  them  seems 
to  turn  against  them  and  become  their  enemy.  It  was,  in 
fact,  a  residuum  of  honor  and  generosity,  united  with 
wounded  pride,  that  drove  Maggie  into  the  street  that 
morning.  She  had  overheard  the  conversation  between 
Aunt  Maria  and  Eva;  and  certain  parts  of  it  brought  back 
to  her  mind  the  severe  reproaches  which  had  fallen  upon 
her  from  her  Uncle  Mike.  He  had  told  her  she  was  a 
disgrace  to  any  honest  house,  and  she  had  overheard  Aunt 
Maria  telling  the  same  thing  to  Eva,  — that  the  having 
and  keeping  such  as  she  in  her  home  was  a  disreputable, 
disgraceful  thing,  and  one  that  would  expose  her  to  very 
unpleasant  comments  and  observations.  Then  she  listened 
to  Aunt  Maria's  argument,  to  show  Eva  that  she  had  better 
send  her  mother  away  and  take  another  woman  in  her 
place,  because  she  was  encumbered  with  such  a  daughter. 

"Well,"  she  said  to  herself,  "I'll  go  then.  I'm  in 
everybody's  way,  and  I  get  everybody  into  trouble  that 's 
good  to  me.  I'll  just  take  myself  off.  So  there!"  and 
Maggie  put  on  her  things  and  plunged  into  the  street  and 
walked  very  fast  in  a  tumult  of  feeling. 

She  had  a  few  dollars  in  her  purse  that  her  mother  had 
given  her  to  buy  winter  clothing;  enough,  she  thought 
vaguely,  to  get  her  a  few  days'  lodging  somewhere,  and 
she  would  find  something  honest  to  do.  She  knew  there 
were  places  where  she  would  be  welcomed  with  an ,  evil 
welcome,  where  she  would  have  praise  and  flattery  instead 
of  chiding  and  rebuke;  but  she  did  not  intend  to  go  to 
them  just  yet. 

The  gentle  words  that  Eva  had  spoken  to  her,  the  hope 
and  confidence  she  had  expressed  that  she  might  yet  re 
trieve  her  future,  were  a  secret  cord  that  held  her  back 
from  going  to  the  utterly  bad.  The  idea  that  somebody 
thought  well  of  her,  that  somebody  believed  in  her,  and 


GOING  TO  THE  BAD  305 

that  a  lady  pretty,  graceful,  and  admired  in  the  world 
seemed  really  to  care  to  have  her  do  well,  was  a  redeeming 
thought.  She  would  go  and  get  some  place,  and  do  some 
thing  for  herself,  and  when  she  had  shown  that  she  could 
do  something,  she  would  once  more  make  herself  known  to 
her  friends.  Maggie  had  a  good  gift  at  millinery,  and,  at 
certain  odd  times,  had  worked  in  a  little  shop  on  Sixteenth 
Street,  where  the  mistress  had  thought  well  of  her,  and 
made  her  advantageous  offers.  Thither  she  went  first,  and 
asked  to  see  Miss  Pinhurst.  The  moment,  however,  that 
she  found  herself  in  that  lady's  presence  she  was  sorry  she 
had  come.  Evidently,  her  story  had  preceded  her.  Miss 
Pinhurst  had  heard  all  the  particulars  of  her  ill  conduct, 
and  was  ready  to  the  best  of  her  ability  to  act  the  part  of 
the  flaming  sword  that  turned  every  way  to  keep  the  fallen 
Eve  out  of  Paradise. 

"I  am  astonished,  Maggie,  that  you  should  even  think 
of  such  a  thing  as  getting  a  place  here,  after  all 's  come 
and  gone  that  you  know  of ;  I  am  astonished  that  you  could 
for  one  moment  think  of  it.  None  but  young  ladies  of 
good  character  can  be  received  into  our  work-rooms.  If  I 
should  let  such  as  you  come  in,  my  respectable  girls  would 
feel  insulted.  I  don't  know  but  they  would  leave  in  a 
body.  I  think  I  should  leave,  under  the  same  circum 
stances.  No,  I  wish  you  well,  Maggie,  and  hope  that  you 
may  be  brought  to  repentance;  but,  as  to  the  shop,  it- 
is  n't  to  be  thought  of." 

Now,  Miss  Pinhurst  was  not  a  hard-hearted  woman; 
not,  in  any  sense,  a  cruel  woman;  she  was  only  on  that 
picket  duty  by  which  the  respectable  and  well-behaved 
part  of  society  keeps  off  the  ill-behaving.  Society  has  its 
instincts  of  self-protection  and  self-preservation,  and  seems 
to  order  the  separation  of  the  sheep  and  the  goats,  even 
before  the  time  of  final  judgment.  For,  as  a  general  thing, 
it  would  not  be  safe  and  proper  to  admit  fallen  women 


306  WE  AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

back  into  the  ranks  of  those  unfallen,  without  some  certi 
ficate  of  purgation.  Somebody  must  be  responsible  for 
them,  that  they  will  not  return  again  to  bad  ways,  and 
draw  with  them  the  innocent  and  inexperienced.  Miss 
Pinhurst  was  right  in  requiring  an  unblemished  record  of 
moral  character  among  her  shop-girls.  It  was  her  mission 
to  run  a  shop  and  run  it  well;  it  was  not  her  call  to  con 
duct  a  Magdalen  Asylum:  hence,  though  we  pity  poor 
Maggie,  coming  out  into  the  cold  with  the  bitter  tears  of 
rejection  freezing  her  cheek,  we  can  hardly  blame  Miss 
Pinhurst.  She  had  on  her  hands  already  all  that  she  could 
manage. 

Besides,  how  could  she  know  that  Maggie  was  really 
repentant?  Such  creatures  were  so  artful;  and,  for  aught 
she  knew,  she  might  be  coming  for  nothing  else  than  to 
lure  away  some  of  her  girls,  and  get  them  into  mischief. 
She  spoke  the  honest  truth  when  she  said  she  wished  well 
to  Maggie.  She  did  wish  her  well.  She  would  have  been 
sincerely  glad  to  know  that  she  had  gotten  into  better  ways, 
but  she  did  not  feel  that  it  was  her  business  to  undertake 
her  case.  She  had  neither  time  nor  skill  for  the  delicate 
and  difficult  business  of  reformation.  Her  helpers  must 
come  to  her  ready-made,  in  good  order,  and  able  to  keep 
step  and  time:  she  could  not  be  expected  to  make  them 
over. 

"  How  hard  they  all  make  it  to  do  right ! "  thought 
Maggie.  But  she  was  too  proud  to  plead  or  entreat. 
"They  all  act  as  if  I  had  the  plague,  and  should  give  it  to 
them;  and  yet  I  don't  want  to  be  bad.  I  Jd  a  great  deal 
rather  be  good  if  they  'd  let  me,  but  I  don't  see  any  way. 
Nobody  will  have  me,  or  let  me  stay,"  and  Maggie  felt  a 
sobbing  pity  for  herself.  Why  should  she  be  treated  as 
if  she  were  the  very  offscouring  of  the  earth,  when  the 
man  who  had  led  her  into  all  this  sin  and  sorrow  was 
moving  in  the  best  society,  caressed,  admired,  flattered, 


GOING   TO    THE   BAD  307 

married  to  a  good,  pious,  lovely  woman,  and  carrying  all 
the  honors  of  life  1 

Why  was  it  such  a  sin  for  her,  and  no  sin  for  him? 
"Why  could  he  repent  and  be  forgiven,  and  why  must  she 
never  be  forgiven?  There  wasn't  any  justice  in  it,  Mag 
gie  hotly  said  to  herself  —  and  there  wasn't;  and  then,  as 
she  walked  those  cold  streets,  pictures  without  words  were 
rising  in  her  mind,  of  days  when  everybody  nattered  and 
praised  her,  and  he  most  of  all.  There  is  no  possession 
which  brings  such  gratifying  homage  as  personal  beauty; 
for  it  is  homage  more  exclusively  belonging  to  the  indi 
vidual  self  than  any  other.  The  tribute  rendered  to  wealth, 
or  talent,  or  genius,  is  far  less  personal.  A  child  or 
woman  gifted  with  beauty  has  a  constant  talisman  that 
turns  all  things  to  gold  —  though,  alas !  the  gold  too  often 
turns  out  like  fairy  gifts ;  it  is  gold  only  in  seeming,  and 
becomes  dirt  and  slate-stone  on  their  hands. 

Beauty  is  a  dazzling  and  dizzying  gift.  It  dazzles  first 
its  possessor  and  inclines  him  to  foolish  action;  and  it 
dazzles  outsiders,  and  makes  them  say  and  do  foolish 
things.  Prom  the  time  that  Maggie  was  a  little  chit,  run 
ning  in  the  street,  people  had  stopped  her,  to  admire  her 
hair  and  eyes,  and  talk  all  kinds  of  nonsense  to  her,  for 
the  purpose  of  making  her  sparkle  and  flush  and  dimple, 
just  as  one  plays  with  a  stick  in  the  sparkling  of  a  brook. 
Her  father,  an  idle,  willful,  careless  creature,  made  a  show 
plaything  of  her,  and  spent  his  earnings  for  her  gratifica 
tion  and  adornment.  The  mother  was  only  too  proud 
and  fond;  and  it  was  no  wonder  that  when  Maggie  grew 
up  to  girlhood  her  head  was  a  giddy  one,  that  she  was  self- 
willed,  self-confident,  obstinate.  Maggie  loved  ease  and 
luxury.  Who  doesn't?  If  she  had  been  born  on  Fifth 
Avenue,  of  one  of  the  magnates  of  New  York,  it  would 
have  been  all  right,  of  course,  for  her  to  love  ribbons  and 
laces  and  flowers  and  fine  clothes,  to  be  imperious  and  self- 


308  WE   AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

willed,  and  to  set  her  pretty  foot  on  the  neck  of  the  world. 
Many  a  young  American  princess,  gifted  with  youth  and 
beauty  and  with  an  indulgent  papa  and  mamma,  is  no 
wiser  than  Maggie  was;  but  nobody  thinks  the  worse  of 
her.  People  laugh  at  her  little  saucy  airs  and  graces,  and 
predict  that  she  will  come  all  right  by  and  by.  But  then, 
for  her,  beauty  means  an  advantageous  marriage,  a  home 
of  luxury,  and  a  continuance  through  life  of  the  petting 
and  indulgence  which  every  one  loves,  whether  wisely  or 
not.  But  Maggie  was  the  daughter  of  a  poor  working 
woman  —  an  Irishwoman  at  that  —  and  what  marriage  lead 
ing  to  wealth  and  luxury  was  in  store  for  her? 

To  tell  the  truth,  at  seventeen,  when  her  father  died 
and  her  mother  was  left  penniless,  Maggie  was  as  unfit  to 
encounter  the  world  as  you,  Miss  Mary,  or  you,  Miss 
Alice,  and  she  was  a  girl  of  precisely  the  same  flesh  and 
blood  as  yourself.  Maggie  cordially  hated  everything  hard, 
unpleasant,  or  disagreeable,  just  as  you  do.  She  was  as 
unused  to  crosses  and  self-denials  as  you  are.  She  longed 
for  fine  things  and  pretty  things,  for  fine  sight-seeing  and 
lively  times,  just  as  you  do,  and  felt  just  as  you  do  that  it 
was  hard  fate  to  be  deprived  of  them.  But,  when  worse 
came  to  worst,  she  went  to  work  with  Mrs.  Maria  Wouver- 
mans.  Maggie  was  parlor-girl  and  waitress,  and  a  good  one 
too.  She  was  ingenious,  neat-handed,  quick  and  bright ; 
and  her  beauty  drew  favorable  attention.  But  Mrs.  Wouver- 
mans  never  commended,  but  only  found  fault.  If  Maggie 
carefully  dusted  every  one  of  the  five  hundred  knickknacks 
of  the  drawing-room  five  hundred  times,  there  was  nothing 
said;  but  if,  on  the  five  hundred  and  first  time,  a  moulding 
or  a  crevice  was  found  with  dust  in  it,  Mrs.  Wouvermans 
would  summon  Maggie  to  her  presence  with  the  air  of  a 
judge,  point  out  the  criminal  fact,  and  inveigh,  in  terms  of 
general  severity,  against  her  carelessness,  as  if  carelessness 
were  the  rule  rather  than  the  exception. 


GOING  TO  THE   BAD  309 

Mrs.  Wouvermans  took  special  umbrage  at  Maggie's 
dress  —  her  hat,  her  feathers,  her  flowers  —  not  because 
they  were  ugly,  but  because  they  were  pretty,  a  great  deal 
too  pretty  and  dressy  for  her  station.  Mrs.  Wouvermans' 
ideal  of  a  maid  was  a  trim  creature,  content  with  two  gowns 
of  coarse  stuff  and  a  bonnet  devoid  of  adornment;  a  crea 
ture  who,  having  eyes,  saw  not  anything  in  the  way  of 
ornament  or  luxury;  whose  whole  soul  was  absorbed  in 
work,  for  work's  sake;  content  with  mean  lodgings,  mean 
furniture,  poor  food,  and  scanty  clothing;  and  devoting 
her  whole  powers  of  body  and  soul  to  securing  to  others 
elegances,  comforts,  and  luxuries  to  which  she  never  as 
pired.  This  self-denied  sister  of  charity,  who  stood  as  the 
ideal  servant,  Mrs.  Wouvermans'  maid  did  not  in  the 
least  resemble.  Quite  another  thing  was  the  gay,  dressy 
young  lady  who,  on  Sunday  mornings,  stepped  forth  from 
the  back  gate  of  her  house  with  so  much  the  air  of  a  Mur 
ray  Hill  demoiselle  that  people  sometimes  said  to  Mrs. 
Wouvermans,  "Who  is  that  pretty  young  lady  that  you 
have  staying  with  you  1  "  —  a  question  that  never  failed  to 
arouse  a  smothered  sense  of  indignation  in  that  lady's 
mind,  and  added  bitterness  to  her  reproofs  and  sarcasms 
when  she  found  a  picture-frame  undusted,  or  pounced  op 
portunely  on  a  cobweb  in  some  neglected  corner. 

Maggie  felt  certain  that  Mrs.  Wouvermans  was  on  the 
watch  to  find  fault  with  her  —  that  she  wanted  to  condemn 
her,  for  she  had  gone  to  service  with  the  best  of  resolu 
tions.  Her  mother  was  poor  and  she  meant  to  help  her; 
she  meant  to  be  a  good  girl,  and,  in  her  own  mind,  she 
thought  she  was  a  very  good  girl  to  do  so  much  work,  and 
remember  so  many  different  things  in  so  many  different 
places,  and  forget  so  few  things. 

Maggie  praised  herself  to  herself,  just  as  you  do,  my 
young  lady,  when  you  have  an  energetic  turn  in  household 
matters,  and  arrange,  and  beautify,  and  dust,  and  adorn 


310  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

mamma's  parlors,  and  then  call  on  mamma  and  papa  and 
all  the  family  to  witness  and  applaud  your  notability.  At 
sixteen  or  seventeen,  household  virtue  is  much  helped  in 
its  development  by  praise.  Praise  is  sunshine;  it  warms, 
it  inspires,  it  promotes  growth:  blame  and  rebuke  are  rain 
and  hail;  they  beat  down  and  bedraggle,  even  though  they 
may  at  times  be  necessary.  There  was  a  time  in  Maggie's 
life  when  a  kind,  judicious,  thoughtful,  Christian  woman 
might  have  kept  her  from  falling,  might  have  won  her 
confidence,  become  her  guide  and  teacher,  and  piloted  her 
through  the  dangerous  shoals  and  quicksands  which  beset 
a  bright,  attractive,  handsome  young  girl,  left  to  make  her 
own  way  alone  and  unprotected. 

But  it  was  not  given  to  Aunt  Maria  to  see  this  oppor 
tunity;  and,  under  her  system  of  management,  it  was  not 
long  before  Maggie's  temper  grew  fractious,  and  she  used 
to  such  purpose  the  democratic  liberty  of  free  speech, 
which  is  the  birthright  of  American  servants,  that  Mrs. 
Wouvermans  never  forgave  her.  Maggie  told  her,  in  fact, 
that  she  was  a  hard-hearted,  mean,  selfish  woman,  who 
wanted  to  get  all  she  could  out  of  her  servants,  and  to  give 
the  least  she  could  in  return;  and  this  came  a  little  too 
near  the  truth  ever  to  be  forgotten  or  forgiven.  Maggie 
was  summarily  warned  out  of  the  house,  and  went  home  to 
her  mother,  who  took  her  part  with  all  her  heart  and  soul, 
and  declared  that  Maggie  shouldn't  live  out  any  longer  — 
she  should  be  nobody's  servant. 

This,  to  be  sure,  was  silly  enough  in  Mary,  since  service 
is  the  law  of  society,  and  we  are  all  more  or  less  servants 
to  somebody;  but  uneducated  people  never  philosophize  or 
generalize,  and  so  cannot  help  themselves  to  wise  conclu 
sions.  All  Mary  knew  was  that  Maggie  had  been  scolded 
and  chafed  by  Mrs.  Wouvermans;  her  handsome  darling 
had  been  abused,  and  she  should  get  into  some  higher 
place  in  the  world;  and  so  she  put  her  as  workwoman  into 
the  fashionable  store  of  S.  S.  &  Co. 


GOING  TO  THE   BAD  311 

There  Maggie  was  seen  and  coveted  by  the  man  who 
made  her  his  prey.  Maggie  was  seventeen,  pretty,  silly, 
hating  work  and  trouble,  longing  for  pleasure,  leisure,  ease, 
and  luxury;  and  he  promised  them  all.  He  told  her  that 
she  was  too  pretty  to  work,  that  if  she  would  trust  herself 
to  him  she  need  have  no  more  care;  and  Maggie  looked 
forward  to  a  rich  marriage  and  a  home  of  her  own.  To  do 
her  justice,  she  loved  the  man  that  promised  this  with  all 
the  warmth  of  her  Irish  heart.  To  her,  he  was  the  splen 
did  prince  in  the  fairy  tale,  come  to  take  her  from  poverty 
and  set  her  among  princes;  and  she  felt  she  could  not  do 
too  much  for  him.  She  would  be  such  a  good  wife,  she 
would  be  so  devoted,  she  would  improve  herself  and  learn 
so  that  she  might  never  discredit  him.  Alas !  in  just  such 
an  enchanted  garden  of  love,  and  hope,  and  joy,  how  often 
has  the  ground  caved  in  and  let  the  victim  down  into  dun 
geons  of  despair  that  never  open ! 

Maggie  thinks  all  this  over  as  she  pursues  her  cheerless, 
aimless  way  through  the  cold,  cutting  wind,  and  looks  into 
face  after  face  that  has  no  pity  for  her.  Scarcely  knowing 
why  she  did  it,  she  took  a  car  and  rode  up  to  the  Park, 
got  out,  and  wandered  drearily  up  and  down  among  the 
leafless  paths  from  which  all  trace  of  summer  greenness  had 
passed. 

Suddenly  a  carriage  whirred  past  her.  She  looked  up. 
There  he  sat,  driving,  and  by  his  side  so  sweet  a  lady,  and 
between  them  a  flaxen-haired  little  beauty,  clasping  a  doll 
in  her  chubby  arms !  The  sweet-faced  woman  looks  piti 
fully  at  the  haggard,  weary  face,  and  says  something  to 
call  the  attention  of  her  husband.  An  angry  flush  rises  to 
his  face.  He  frowns,  and  whips  up  the  horse,  and  is 
gone.  A  sort  of  rage  and  bitterness  possess  Maggie's  soul. 
What  is  the  use  of  trying  to  do  better?  Nobody  pities 
her.  Nobody  helps  her.  The  world  is  all  against  her. 
Why  not  go  to  the  bad  1 


CHAPTEE   XXXV 

A    SOUL    IN    PERIL 

IT  will  be  seen  by  the  way  in  which  we  left  poor  Mag 
gie  that  she  stood  in  just  one  of  those  critical  steep  places 
of  life  where  a  soul  is  in  pain  and  peril;  where  the  turn 
ing  of  a  hair's  breadth  may  decide  between  death  and  life. 
And  it  is  something,  not  only  to  the  individual,  but  to  the 
whole  community,  what  a  woman  may  become  in  one  of 
these  crises  of  life. 

Maggie  had  a  rich,  warm,  impulsive  nature,  full  of  pas 
sion  and  energy;  she  had  personal  beauty  and  the  power 
that  comes  from  it ;  she  had  in  her  all  that  might  have  made 
the  devoted  wife  and  mother,  fitted  to  give  strong  sons 
and  daughters  to  our  republic,  and  to  bring  them  up 
to  strengthen  our  country.  But,  deceived,  betrayed,  led 
astray  by  the  very  impulses  which  should  have  ended  in 
home  and  marriage,  with  even  her  best  friends  condemning 
her,  her  own  heart  condemning  her,  the  whole  face  of  the 
world  set  against  her,  her  feet  stood  in  slippery  places. 

There  is  another  life  open  to  the  woman  whom  the 
world  judges  and  rejects  and  condemns;  a  life  short,  bad, 
desperate;  a  life  of  revenge,  of  hate,  of  deceit;  a  life  in 
which  woman,  outraged  and  betrayed  by  man,  turns  bit 
terly  upon  him,  to  become  the  tempter,  the  betrayer,  the 
miner  of  man,  —  to  visit  misery  and  woe  on  the  society 
that  condemns  her.  Many  a  young  man  has  been  led  to 
gambling,  and  drinking,  and  destruction;  many  a  wife's 
happiness  has  been  destroyed;  many  a  mother  has  wept 
on  a  sleepless  pillow  over  a  son  worse  than  dead,  —  only 


A   SOUL   IN   PERIL  313 

because  some  woman,  who  at  a  certain  time  in  her  life 
might  have  been  saved  to  honor  and  good  living,  has  been 
left  to  be  a  vessel  of  wrath  fitted  to  destruction.  For  we 
have  seen  in  Maggie's  history  that  there  were  points  all 
along  where  the  girl  might  have  been  turned  into  another 
and  a  better  way. 

If  Mrs.  Maria  Wouvermans,  instead  of  railing  at  her 
love  of  feathers  and  flowers,  watching  for  her  halting,  and 
seeking  occasion  against  her,  had  only  had  grace  to  do  for 
her  what  lies  in  the  power  of  every  Christian  mistress ;  if 
she  had  won  her  confidence,  given  her  motherly  care  and 
sympathy,  and  trained  her  up  under  the  protection  of 
household  influences,  it  might  have  been  otherwise.  Or, 
supposing  that  Maggie  were  too  self-willed,  too  elate  with 
the  flatteries  that  come  to  young  beauty,  to  be  saved  from 
a  fall,  yet,  after  that  fall,  when  she  rose,  ashamed  and 
humbled,  there  was  still  a  chance  of  retrieval. 

Perhaps  there  is  never  a  time  when  man  or  woman  has 
a  better  chance,  with  suitable  help,  of  building  a  good 
character  than  just  after  a  humiliating  fall  which  has  taught 
the  sinner  his  own  weakness,  and  given  him  a  sad  experi 
ence  of  the  bitterness  of  sin.  Nobody  wants  to  be  sold 
under  sin,  and  go  the  whole  length  in  iniquity ;  and  when 
one  has  gone  just  far  enough  in  wrong  living  to  perceive 
in  advance  all  its  pains  and  penalties,  there  is  often  an 
agonized  effort  to  get  back  to  respectability,  like  the  clutch 
ing  of  the  drowning  man  for  the  shore.  The  waters  of 
death  are  cold  and  bitter,  and  nobody  wants  to  be  drowned. 
But  it  is  just  at  this  point  that  the  drowning  hand  is 
wrenched  off;  society  fears  that  the  poor  wet  wretch  will 
upset  its  respectable  boat;  it  pushes  him  off,  and  rows 
over  the  last  rising  bubbles. 

And  this  is  not  in  the  main  because  men  and  women  are 
hard-hearted  or  cruel,  but  because  they  are  busy,  every  one 
of  them,  with  their  own  works  and  ways,  hurried,  driven, 


314  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

with  no  time,  strength,  or  heart-leisure  for  more  than  they 
are  doing.  What  is  one  poor  soul  struggling  in  the  water, 
swimming  upstream,  to  the  great  pushing,  busy,  bustling 
world  ? 

Nothing  in  the  review  of  life  appears  to  us  so  pitiful  as 
the  absolute  nothingness  of  the  individual  in  the  great  mass 
of  human  existence.  To  each  living,  breathing,  suffering 
atom,  the  consciousness  of  what  it  desires  and  suffers  is  so 
intense,  and  to  every  one  else  so  faint.  It  is  faint  even 
to  the  nearest  and  dearest  compared  to  what  it  is  to  one's 
self.  "The  heart  knoweth  its  own  bitterness,  and  a 
stranger  intermeddleth  not  therewith." 

Suppose  you  wrere  suddenly  struck  down  to-day  by 
death  in  any  of  its  dreadful  forms,  how  much  were  this  to 
you,  how  little  to  the  world!  how  little  even  to  the 
friendly  world,  who  think  well  of  you  and  wish  you  kindly ! 
The  paper  that  tells  the  tale  scarcely  drops  from  their 
hand;  a  few  shocked  moments  of  pity  or  lamentation,  per 
haps,  and  then  returns  the  discussion  of  what  shall  be  for 
dinner,  and  whether  the  next  dress  shall  be  cut  with 
flounces  or  folds;  the  gay  waves  of  life  dance  and  glitter 
over  the  last  bubble  which  marks  where  you  sank.  So  we 
have  seen  poor  Maggie,  with  despair  and  bitterness  in  her 
heart,  wandering,  on  a  miserable  cold  day,  through  the 
Christmas  rejoicings  of  New  York,  on  the  very  verge  of 
going  back  to  courses  that  end  in  unutterable  degradation 
and  misery;  and  yet,  how  little  it  was  anybody's  business 
to  seek  or  to  save  her. 

"So,"  said  Mrs.  Wouvermans  in  a  tone  of  exultation, 
when  she  heard  of  Maggie's  flight,  "I  hope,  I'm  sure, 
Eva's  had  enough  of  her  fine  ways  of  managing!  Miss 
Maggie  's  off,  just  as  I  knew  she  'd  be.  That  girl  is  a  bag 
gage!  And  now,  of  course,  nothing  must  do  but  Mary 
must  be  off  to  look  for  her,  and  then  Eva  is  left  with 
all  her  house  on  her  hands.  I  should  think  this  would 


A  SOUL  IN   PERIL  315 

show  her  that  my  advice  wasn't  so  altogether  to  be 
scorned." 

Now,  it  is  not  to  be  presumed  that  Mrs.  Wouvermans 
really  was  so  cruel  as  to  exult  in  the  destruction  of  Maggie, 
and  the  perplexity  and  distress  of  her  mother,  or  in  Eva's 
domestic  discomfort;  yet  there  was  something  very  like 
this  in  the  tone  of  her  remarks. 

Whence  is  the  feeling  of  satisfaction  which  we  have 
when  things  that  we  always  said  we  knew  turn  out  just 
as  we  predicted  ?  Had  we  really  rather  our  neighbor  would 
be  proved  a  thief  and  a  liar  than  to  be  proved  in  a  mistake 
ourselves  ?  Would  we  be  willing  to  have  somebody  topple 
headlong  into  destruction  for  the  sake  of  being  able  to  say, 
"  I  told  you  so  "  ?  Mrs.  Wouvermans  did  not  ask  herself 
these  pointed  questions,  and  so  she  stirred  her  faultless 
coffee  without  stirring  up  a  doubt  of  her  own  Christianity 
—  for,  like  you  and  me,  Mrs.  Wouvermans  held  herself  to 
be  an  ordinarily  good  Christian. 

Gentle,  easy  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel  heard  this  news  with 
acquiescence.  "Well,  girls,  so  that  Maggie 's  run  off  and 
settled  the  question;  and,  on  the  whole,  I'm  not  sorry, 
for  that  ends  Eva's  responsibility  for  her;  and,  after  all, 
I  think  your  aunt  was  half  right  about  that  matter.  One 
doesn't  want  to  have  too  much  to  do  with  such  people." 

"But,  mamma,"  said  Alice,  "it  seems  such  a  dreadful 
thing  that  so  young  a  girl,  not  older  than  I  am,  should  be 
utterly  lost." 

"Yes,  but  you  can't  help  it,  and  such  things  are  happen 
ing  all  the  time,  and  it  isn't  worth  while  making  ourselves 
unhappy  about  it.  I  'm  sure  Eva  acted  like  a  little  saint 
about  it,  and  the  girl  can  have  no  one  to  blame  but  herself. " 

"I  know,"  said  Alice;  "Eva  told  me  about  it.  It  was 
Aunt  Maria,  with  her  usual  vigor  and  activity,  who  pre 
cipitated  the  catastrophe.  Eva  had  just  got  the  girl  into 
good  ways,  and  all  was  going  smoothly,  when  Aunt  Maria 


316  WE   AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

came  in  and  broke  everything  up.  I  must  say,  I  think 
Aunt  Maria  is  a  nuisance." 

"Oh,  Alice,  how  can  you  talk  so,  when  you  know  that 
your  aunt  is  thinking  of  nothing  so  much  as  how  to  serve 
and  advance  you  girls  1  " 

"  She  is  thinking  of  how  to  carry  her  own  will  and  plea 
sure;  and  we  girls  are  like  so  many  ninepins  that  she 
wants  to  set  up  or  knock  down  to  suit  her  game.  Now, 
she  has  gone  and  invited  those  Stephenson  girls  to  spend 
the  holidays  with  her." 

"Well,  you  know  it's  entirely  on  your  account,  Alice, 
—  you  girls.  The  Stephensons  are  a  very  desirable  family 
to  cultivate." 

"Yes;  it 's  all  a  sort  of  artifice,  so  that  they  may  have 
to  invite  us  to  visit  them  next  summer  at  Newport.  Now, 
I  never  was  particularly  interested  in  those  girls.  They 
always  seemed  to  me  insipid  sort  of  people;  and  to  feel 
obliged  to  be  very  attentive  to  them  and  cultivate  their 
intimacy,  with  any  such  view,  is  a  sort  of  manoauvring 
that  is  very  repulsive  to  me;  it  doesn't  seem  honest." 

"But  now  your  aunt  has  got  them,  and  we  must  be 
attentive  to  them,"  pleaded  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel. 

"  Oh,  of  course.  What  I  am  complaining  of  is  that  my 
aunt  can't  let  us  alone;  that  she  is  always  scheming  for 
us,  planning  ahead  for  us,  getting  people  that  we  must  be 
attentive  to,  and  all  that;  and  then,  because  she  's  our  aunt 
and  devoted  to  our  interests,  our  conscience  is  all  the  while 
troubling  us  because  we  don't  like  her  better.  The  truth 
is,  Aunt  Maria  is  a  constant  annoyance  to  me,  and  I 
reproach  myself  for  not  being  grateful  to  her.  Now, 
Angelique  and  I  are  on  a  committee  for  buying  the  pre 
sents  for  the  Christmas  tree  of  our  mission  school,  and  we 
shall  have  to  go  and  get  the  tree  up;  and  it's  no  small 
work  to  dress  a  Christmas  tree  —  in  fact,  we  shall  just 
have  our  hands  full,  without  the  Stephensons.  We  are 


A  SOUL   IN   PERIL  317 

going  up  to  Eva's  this  very  morning,  to  talk  this  matter 
over  and  make  out  our  lists  of  things;  and,  for  my  part, 
I  find  the  Stephensons  altogether  de  trop." 

Meanwhile,  in  Eva's  little  dominion,  peace  and  prosper 
ity  had  returned  with  the  return  of  cook  to  the  kitchen 
cabinet.  A  few  days'  withdrawal  of  that  important  por 
tion  of  the  household  teaches  the  mistress  many  things, 
and,  among  others,  none  more  definitely  than  the  real  dig 
nity  and  importance  of  that  sphere  which  is  generally 
regarded  as  least  and  lowest. 

Mary  had  come  back  disheartened  from  a  fruitless  quest. 
Maggie  had  indeed  been  at  Poughkeepsie,  and  had  spent 
a  day  and  a  night  with  a  widowed  sister  of  Mary's,  and 
then,  following  a  restless  impulse,  had  gone  back  to  Xew 
York  —  none  knew  whither ;  and  Mary  was  going  on  with 
her  duties  with  that  quiet,  acquiescent  sadness  with  which 
people  of  her  class  bear  sorrow  which  they  have  no  leisure 
to  indulge.  The  girl  had  for  two  or  three  years  been  lost 
to  her;  but  the  brief  interval  of  restoration  seemed  to  have 
made  the  pang  of  losing  her  again  still  more  dreadful. 
Then,  the  anticipated  mortification  of  having  to  tell  Mike 
of  it,  and  the  thought  of  what  Mike  and  Mike's  wife 
would  say,  were  a  stinging  poison.  Though  Maggie's 
flight  was  really  due  in  a  great  measure  to  Mike's  own 
ungracious  reception  of  her  and  his  harsh  upbraidings, 
intensified  by  what  she  had  overheard  from  Mrs.  Wouver- 
mans,  yet  Mary  was  quite  sure  that  Mike  would  receive 
it  as  a  confirmation  of  his  own  sagacity  in  the  opinion  he 
had  pronounced. 

The  hardness  and  apathy  with  which  even  near  relations 
will  consign  their  kith  and  kin  to  utter  ruin  is  one  of  the 
sad  phenomena  of  life.  Mary  knew  that  Mike  would  say 
to  her,  "Didn't  I  tell  you  so?  The  girl's  gone  to  the 
bad;  let  her  go!  She  's  made  her  bed;  let  her  lie  in  it." 

It  was  only  from  her  gentle,  sympathetic  mistress  that 


318  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

Mary  met  with  a  word  of  comfort.  Eva  talked  with  her, 
and  encouraged  her  to  pour  out  all  her  troubles  and  opened 
the  door  of  her  own  heart  to  her  sorrows.  Eva  cheered 
and  comforted  her  all  she  could,  though  she  had  small 
hopes,  herself.  She  had  told  Mr.  Fellows,  she  said,  and 
Mr.  Fellows  knew  all  about  New  York  —  knew  everybody 
and  everything  —  and  if  Maggie  were  there  he  would  be 
sure  to  hear  of  her;  "and  if  she  is  anywhere  in  New  York 
I  will  go  to  her,"  said  Eva,  "and  persuade  her  to  come 
back  and  be  a  good  girl.  And  don't  you  tell  your  brother 
anything  about  it.  Why  need  he  know  ?  I  dare  say  we 
shall  get  Maggie  back,  and  all  going  right,  before  he  knows 
anything  about  it." 

Eva  had  just  been  talking  to  this  effect  to  Mary  in  the 
kitchen,  and  she  came  back  into  her  parlor,  to  find  there 
poor,  fluttering,  worried  little  Mrs.  Betsey  Benthusen,  who 
had  come  in  to  bewail  her  prodigal  son,  of  whom,  for  now 
three  days  and  nights,  no  tidings  had  been  heard. 

"I  came  in  to  ask  you,  dear  Mrs.  Henderson,  if  any 
thing  has  been  heard  from  the  advertising  of  Jack?  I 
declare,  I  haven't  been  able  to  sleep  since  he  went,  I  am 
so  worried.  I  dare  say  you  must  think  it  silly  of  me," 
she  said,  wiping  her  eyes,  "but  I  am  just  so  silly.  I 
really  had  got  so  fond  of  him  —  I  feel  so  lonesome  without 
him." 

"  Silly,  dear  friend ! "  said  Eva  in  her  usual  warm,  im 
pulsive  way,  "no,  indeed;  I  think  it's  perfectly  natural 
that  you  should  feel  as  you  do.  I  think,  for  my  part, 
these  poor  dumb  pets  were  given  us  to  love;  and  if  we  do 
love  them,  we  can't  help  feeling  anxious  about  them  when 
they  are  gone." 

"You  see,"  said  Mrs.  Betsey,  "if  I  only  knew  —  but 
I  don't  —  if  I  knew  just  where  he  was,  or  if  he  was  well 
treated;  but  then,  Jack  is  a  dog  that  has  been  used  to 
kindness,  and  it  would  come  hard  to  him  to  have  to  suffer 


A   SOUL   IN   PERIL  319 

hunger  and  thirst,  and  be  kicked  about  and  abused.  I  lay 
and  thought  about  things  that  might  happen  to  him,  last 
night,  till  I  fairly  cried "  —  and  the  tears  stood  in  the 
misty  blue  eyes  of  the  faded  little  old  gentlewoman,  in 
attestation  of  the  possibility.  "I  got  so  wrought  up,"  she 
continued,  "that  I  actually  prayed  to  my  Heavenly  Father 
to  take  care  of  my  poor  Jack.  Do  you  think  that  was 
profane,  Mrs.  Henderson?  I  just  could  not  help  it." 

"No,  dear  Mrs.  Betsey,  I  don't  think  it  was  profane; 
I  think  it  was  just  the  most  sensible  thing  you  could  do. 
You  know  our  Saviour  says  that  not  a  sparrow  falls  to  the 
ground  without  our  Father,  and  I  'm  sure  Jack  is  a  good 
deal  larger  than  a  sparrow." 

"Well,  I  didn't  tell  Dorcas,"  said  Mrs.  Betsey,  "be 
cause  she  thinks  I  'm  foolish,  and  I  suppose  I  am.  I  'm  a 
broken-up  old  woman  now,  and  I  never  had  as  much 
strength  of  mind  as  Dorcas,  anyway.  Dorcas  has  a  very 
strong  mind,"  said  little  Mrs.  Betsey  in  a  tone  of  awe; 
"she  has  tried  all  she  could  to  strengthen  mine,  but  she 
can't  do  much  with  me." 

Just  at  this  instant,  Eva,  looking  through  the  window 
down  street,  saw  Jim  Fellows  approaching,  with  Jack's 
head  appearing  above  his  shoulder  in  that  easy,  jaunty 
attitude  with  which  the  restored  lamb  is  represented  in  a 
modern  engraving  of  the  Good  Shepherd.  There  he  sat, 
to  be  sure,  with  a  free  and  easy  air  of  bright,  doggish  viva 
city  ;  perched  aloft  with  his  pink  tongue  hanging  gracefully 
out  of  his  mouth,  and  his  great,  bright  eyes  and  little 
black  tip  of  a  nose  gleaming  out  from  the  silvery  thicket 
of  his  hair,  looking  anything  but  penitent  for  all  the  dis 
mays  and  sorrows  of  which  he  had  been  the  cause. 

"Oh,  Mrs.  Betsey,  do  come  here,"  cried  Eva;  "here  is 
Jack,  to  be  sure !  " 

"You  don't  say  so!  Why,  so  he  is;  that  dear,  good 
Mr.  Fellows !  how  can  I  ever  thank  him  enough ! " 


320  WE   AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

And,  as  Jim  mounted  the  steps,  Eva  hastened  to  open 
the  door  in  anticipation  of  the  door-bell. 

"Any  dogs  to-day,  ma'am?"  said  Jim  in  the  tone  of  a 
peddler. 

"Oh,  Mrs.  Henderson!"  said  Mrs.  Betsey.  But  what 
further  she  said  was  lost  in  Jack's  vociferous  barking. 
He  had  recognized  Mrs.  Betsey  and  struggled  down  out 
of  Jim's  arms,  and  was  leaping  and  capering  and  barking, 
overwhelming  his  mistress  with  obstreperous  caresses,  in 
which  there  was  not  the  slightest  recognition  of  any  occa 
sion  for  humility  or  penitence.  Jack  was  forgiving  Mrs. 
Betsey  with  all  his  might  and  main  for  all  the  trouble  he 
had  caused,  and  expressing  his  perfect  satisfaction  and 
delight  at  finding  himself  at  home  again. 

"Well,"  said  Jim,  in  answer  to  the  numerous  questions 
showered  upon  him,  "the  fact  is  that  Dixon  and  I  were 
looking  up  something  to  write  about  in  a  not  very  elegant 
or  reputable  quarter  of  New  York,  and  suddenly,  as  we 
were  passing  one  of  the  dance  houses,  that  girl  Maggie 
darted  out  with  Jack  in  her  arms,  and  calling  after  me  by 
name,  she  said,  '  This  poor  dog  belongs  to  the  people 
opposite  Mrs.  Henderson's.  He  has  been  stolen  away, 
and  won't  you  take  him  back? '  I  said  I  would,  and  then 
I  said,  '  Seems  to  me,  Maggie,  you  'd  better  come  back, 
too,  to  your  mother,  who  is  worrying  dreadfully  about  you. ' 
But  she  turned  quickly  and  said,  '  The  less  said  about  me 
the  better, '  and  ran  in. " 

"Oh,  how  dreadful  that  anybody  should  be  so  depraved 
at  her  age,"  said  little  Mrs.  Betsey,  complacently  caressing 
Jack.  "Mrs.  Henderson,  you  have  had  a  fortunate  escape 
of  her;  you  must  be  glad  to  get  her  out  of  your  house. 
Well,  I  must  hurry  home  with  him  and  get  him  washed 
up,  for  he  's  in  such  a  state!  And  do  look  at  this  ribbon! 
Would  you  know  it  ever  had  been  a  ribbon?  it's  thick 
with  grease  and  dirt,  and  I  dare  say  he  's  covered  with 


A   SOUL  IN   PERIL  321 

fleas.  Oh,  Jack,  Jack,  what  trouble  you  have  made 
me!" 

And  the  little  woman  complacently  took  up  her  criminal, 
who  went  off  on  her  shoulder  with  his  usual  waggish  air  of 
impudent  assurance. 

"See  what  luck  it  is  to  be  a  dog,"  said  Jim.  ."No 
body  would  have  half  the  patience  with  a  ragamuffin  boy, 
now!" 

"But,  seriously,  Jim,  what  can  be  done  about  poor 
Maggie?  I've  promised  her  mother  to  get  her  back,  if 
she  could  be  discovered." 

"Well,  really  she  is  in  one  of  the  worst  drinking  saloons 
of  that  quarter,  kept  by  Mother  Moggs,  who  is,  to  put  the 
matter  explicitly,  a  sort  of  she-devil.  It  isn't  a  place 
where  it  would  do  for  me  or  any  of  the  boys  to  go.  We 
are  not  calculated  for  missionary  work  in  just  that  kind  of 
field." 

"Well,  who  can  go?  What  can  be  done?  I've  pro 
mised  Mary  to  save  her.  I  '11  go  myself,  if  you  '11  show 
me  the  way." 

"You,  Mrs.  Henderson?  You  don't  know  what  you 
are  talking  about.  You  never  could  go  there.  It  is  n't  to 
be  thought  of." 

"But  somebody  must  go,  Jim;  we  can't  leave  her 
there." 

"Well,  now  I  think  of  it,"  said  Jim,  "there  is  a  Metho 
dist  minister  who  has  undertaken  to  set  up  a  mission  in 
just  that  part  of  the  city.  They  bought  a  place  that  used 
to  be  kept  for  a  rat-pit,  and  had  it  cleaned  up,  and  they 
have  opened  a  mission  house,  and  have  prayer-meetings 
and  such  things  there.  I'll  look  that  thing  up;  perhaps 
he  can  find  Maggie  for  you.  Though  I  must  say  you  are 
taking  a  great  deal  of  trouble  about  this  girl." 

"Well,  Jim,  she  has  a  mother,  and  her  mother  loves  her 
as  yours  does  you." 


322  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

"By  George,  now,  that's  enough,"  said  Jim.  "You 
don't  need  to  say  another  word.  I  '11  go  right  about  it, 
this  very  day,  and  hunt  up  this  Mr.  What  's-his-name,  and 
find  all  about  this  mission.  I  've  been  meaning  to  write 
that  thing  up  this  month  or  so." 


CHAPTEE   XXXVI 

LOVE    IN    CHRISTMAS    GKEENS 

THE  little  chapel  in  one  of  the  out-of-the-way  streets 
of  New  York  presented  a  scene  of  Christmas  activity  and 
cheerfulness  approaching  to  gayety.  The  whole  place  was 
fragrant  with  the  spicy  smell  of  spruce  and  hemlock.  Bas 
kets  of  green  ruffles  of  ground-pine  were  foaming  over  their 
sides  with  abundant  contributions  from  the  forest ;  and  bright 
bunches  of  vermilion  bitter-sweet,  and  the  crimson-studded 
branches  of  the  black  alder,  added  color  to  the  picture.  Of 
real  traditional  holly,  which  in  America  is  a  rarity,  there  was 
a  scant  supply,  reserved  for  more  honorable  decorations. 

Mr.  St.  John  had  been  busy  in  his  vestry  with  paper, 
colors,  and  gilding,  illuminating  some  cards  with  Scrip 
tural  mottoes.  He  had  just  brought  forth  his  last  effort 
and  placed  it  in  a  favorable  light  for  inspection.  It  is  the 
ill  fortune  of  every  successful  young  clergyman  to  stir  the 
sympathies  and  enkindle  the  venerative  faculties  of  certain 
excitable  women,  old  and  young,  who  follow  his  footsteps 
and  regard  his  works  and  ways  with  a  sort  of  adoring  rap 
ture  that  sometimes  exposes  him  to  ridicule  if  he  accept 
it,  and  which  yet  it  seems  churlish  to  decline.  It  is  not 
generally  his  fault,  nor  exactly  the  fault  of  the  women, 
often  amiably  sincere  and  unconscious ;  but  it  is  a  fact  that 
this  kind  of  besetment  is  more  or  less  the  lot  of  every 
clergyman,  and  he  cannot  help  it.  It  is  to  be -accepted  as 
we  accept  any  of  the  shadows  which  are  necessary  in  the 
picture  of  life,  and  got  along  with  by  the  kind  of  common 
sense  with  which  we  dispose  of  any  of  its  infelicities. 


324  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

Mr.  St.  John  did  little  to  excite  demonstrations  of  this 
kind;  but  the  very  severity  with  which  he  held  himself  in 
reserve  seemed  rather  to  increase  a  kind  of  sacred  prestige 
which  hung  around  him,  making  of  him  a  sort  of  churchly 
Grand  Llama.  When,  therefore,  he  brought  out  his 
illuminated  card,  on  which  was  inscribed  in  Anglo-Saxon 
characters, 

"The  Word  was  made  flesh 
And  dwelt  among  us," 

there  was  a  loud  acclaim  of  "How  lovely!  how  sweet!" 
with  groans  of  intense  admiration  from  Miss  Augusta 
Gusher  and  Miss  Sophronia  Vapors,  which  was  echoed  in 
"  ohs !  "  and  "  ahs !  "  from  an  impressible  group  of  girls  on 
the  right  and  left. 

Angelique  stood  quietly  gazing  on  it,  with  a  wreath  of 
ground-pine  dangling  from  her  hand,  but  she  said  nothing. 

Mr.  St.  John  at  last  said,  "And  what  do  you  think, 
Miss  Van  Arsdel  ?  " 

"I  think  the  colors  are  pretty,"  Angie  said,  hesitating, 
"but"  — 

"But  what?"  said  Mr.  St.  John  quickly. 

"Well,  I  don't  know  what  it  means  —  I  don't  under 
stand  it." 

Mr.  St.  John  immediately  read  the  inscription  in  concert 
with  Miss  Gusher,  who  was  a  very  mediaeval  young  lady 
and  quite  up  to  reading  Gothic,  or  Anglo- Saxon,  or  Latin, 
or  any  churchly  tongue. 

"Oh!"  was  all  the  answer  Angie  made;  and  then, 
seeing  something  more  was  expected,  she  added  again,  "I 
think  the  effect  of  the  lettering  very  pretty,"  and  turned 
away,  and  busied  herself  with  a  cross  of  ground-pine  that 
she  was  making  in  a  retired  corner. 

The  chorus  were  loud  and  continuous  in  their  acclaims, 
and  Miss  Gusher  talked  learnedly  of  lovely  inscriptions  in 
Greek  and  Latin,  offering  to  illuminate  some  of  them  for 


LOVE   IN  CHRISTMAS   GREENS  325 

the  occasion.  Mr.  St.  John  thanked  her  and  withdrew  to 
his  sanctum  less  satisfied  than  before. 

About  half  an  hour  after,  Angie,  who  was  still  quietly 
busy  upon  her  cross  in  her  quiet  corner,  under  the  shade 
of  a  large  hemlock-tree  which  had  been  erected  there,  was 
surprised  to  find  Mr.  St.  John  standing,  silently  observing 
her  work.  "I  like  your  work,"  he  said,  "better  than  you 
did  mine." 

"I  didn't  say  that  I  didn't  like  yours,"  said  Angie, 
coloring,  and  with  that  sort  of  bright,  quick  movement 
that  gave  her  the  air  of  a  bird  just  going  to  fly. 

"  No,  you  did  not  say,  but  you  left  approbation  unsaid, 
which  amounts  to  the  same  thing.  You  have  some  objec 
tion,  I  see,  and  I  really  wish  you  would  tell  me  frankly 
what  it  is." 

"Oh,  Mr.  St.  John,  don't  say  that!  Of  course  I  never 
thought  of  objecting;  it  would  be  presumptuous  in  me. 
I  really  don't  understand  these  matters  at  all,  not  at  all. 
I  just  don't  know  anything  about  Gothic  letters  and  all 
that,  and  so  the  card  doesn't  say  anything  to  me.  And  I 
must  confess,  I  thought "  — 

Here  Angie,  like  a  properly  behaved  young  daughter  of 
the  Church,  began  to  perceive  that  her  very  next  sentence 
might  lead  her  into  something  like  a  criticism  upon  her 
rector;  and  she  paused  on  the  brink  of  a  gulf  so  horrible, 
"with  pious  awe  that  feared  to  have  offended." 

Mr.  St.  John  felt  a  very  novel  and  singular  pleasure  in 
the  progress  of  this  interview.  It  interested  him  to  be 
differed  with,  and  he  said,  with  a  slight  intonation  of  dic 
tation  :  — 

"I  must  insist  on  your  telling  me  what  you  thought, 
Miss  Angie." 

"  Oh,  nothing,  only  this  —  that  if  I,  who  have  had  more 
education  than  our  Sunday-school  scholars,  can't  read  a 
card  like  that,  why,  they  could  not.  I  'rn  quite  sure  that 


326  WE  AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

an  inscription  in  plain  modern  letters  that  I  could  read 
would  have  more  effect  upon  my  mind,  and  I  am  quite  sure 
it  would  on  them." 

"I  thank  you  sincerely  for  your  frankness,  Miss  Angie; 
your  suggestion  is  a  valuable  one." 

"I  think,"  said  Angie,  "that  mediaeval  inscriptions,  and 
Greek  and  Latin  mottoes,  are  interesting  to  educated,  culti 
vated  people.  The  very  fact  of  their  being  in  another 
language  gives  a  sort  of  piquancy  to  them.  The  idea  gets 
a  new  coloring  from  a  new  language;  but  to  people  who 
absolutely  don't  understand  a  word,  they  say  nothing,  and 
of  course  they  do  no  good;  so,  at  least,  it  seems  to  me." 

"You  are  quite  right,  Miss  Angie,  and  I  shall  immedi 
ately  put  my  inscription  into  the  English  of  to-day.  The 
fact  is,  Miss  Angie,"  added  St.  John  after  a  silent  pause, 
"I  feel  more  and  more  what  a  misfortune  it  has  been  to 
me  that  I  never  had  a  sister.  There  are  so  many  things 
where  a  woman's  mind  sees  so  much  more  clearly  than  a 
man's.  I  never  had  any  intimate  female  friend."  Here 
Mr.  St.  John  began  assiduously  tying  up  little  bunches  of 
the  ground-pine  in  the  form  which  Angie  needed  for  her 
cross,  and  laying  them  for  her. 

Now,  if  Angie  had  been  a  sophisticated  young  lady, 
familiar  with  the  tactics  of  flirtation,  she  might  have  had 
precisely  the  proper  thing  at  hand  to  answer  this  remark; 
as  it  was,  she  kept  on  tying  her  bunches  assiduously  and 
feeling  a  little  embarrassed.  It  was  a  pity  he  should  not 
have  a  sister,  she  thought.  Poor  man,  it  must  be  lone 
some  for  him;  and  Angie's  face  at  this  moment  must 
have  expressed  come  commiseration  or  some  emotion  that 
emboldened  the  young  man  to  say,  in  a  lower  tone,  as 
he  laid  down  a  bunch  of  green  by  her :  — 

"If  you,  Miss  Angie,  would  look  on  me  as  you  do  on 
your  brothers,  and  tell  me  sincerely  your  opinion  of  me,  it 
might  be  a  great  help  to  me." 


LOVE   IN   CHRISTMAS   GREENS  327 

Now  Mr.  St.  John  was  certainly  as  innocent  and  trans- 
lucently  ignorant  of  life  as  Adam  at  the  first  hour  of  his 
creation,  not  to  know  that  the  tone  in  which  he  was  speak 
ing  and  the  impulse  from  which  he  spoke,  at  that  moment, 
was  in  fact  that  of  man's  deepest,  most  absorbing  feeling 
towards  woman.  He  had  made  his  scheme  of  life;  and, 
as  a  set  purpose,  had  left  love  out  of  it,  as  something  too 
terrestrial  and  mundane  to  consist  with  the  sacred  voca 
tion  of  a  priest.  But,  from  the  time  he  first  came  within 
the  sphere  of  Angelique,  a  strange,  delicious  atmosphere, 
vague  and  dreamy,  yet  delightful,  had  encircled  him,  and 
so  perplexed  and  dizzied  his  brain  as  to  cause  all  sorts  of 
strange  vibrations.  At  first,  there  was  a  sort  of  repulsion 
—  a  vague  alarm,  a  suspicion  and  repulsion  singularly 
blended  with  an  attraction.  He  strove  to  disapprove  of 
her;  he  resolved  not  to  think  of  her;  he  resolutely  turned 
his  head  away  from  looking  at  her  in  her  place  in  Sunday- 
school  and  church,  because  he  felt  that  his  thoughts  were 
alarmingly  drawn  in  that  direction. 

Then  came  his  invitation  into  society,  of  which  the  hid 
den  charm,  unacknowledged  to  himself,  was  that  he  should 
meet  Angelique;  and  that  mingling  in  society  had  pro 
duced,  inevitably,  modifying  effects,  which  made  him 
quite  a  different  being  from  what  he  was  in  his  recluse  life 
passed  between  the  study  and  the  altar. 

It  is  not  in  man,  certainly  not  in  a  man  so  finely  fibred 
and  strung  as  St.  John,  to  associate  intimately  with  his 
fellows  without  feeling  their  forces  upon  himself,  and  find 
ing  many  things  in  himself  of  which  he  had  not  dreamed. 
But  if  there  be  in  the  circle  some  one  female  presence 
which  all  the  while  is  sending  out  an  indefinite  though 
powerful  enchantment,  the  developing  force  is  still  more 
marked. 

St.  John  had  never  suspected  himself  of  the  ability  to 
be  so  agreeable  as  he  found  himself  in  the  constant  reunions 


328  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

which,  for  one  cause  or  another,  were  taking  place  in  the 
little  Henderson  house.  He  developed  a  talent  for  conver 
sation,  a  vein  of  gentle  humor,  a  turn  for  versification, 
with  a  cast  of  thought  rising  into  the  sphere  of  poetry,  and 
then,  with  Dr.  Campbell  and  Alice  and  Angie,  he  formed 
no  mean  quartette  in  singing. 

In  all  these  ways  he  had  been  coming  nearer  and  nearer 
to  Angie,  without  taking  the  alarm.  He  remembered 
appositely  what  Montalembert  in  his  history  of  the  monks 
of  the  Middle  Ages  says  of  the  female  friendships  which 
always  exerted  such  a  modifying  power  in  the  lives  of  cele 
brated  saints ;  how  St.  Jerome  had  his  Eudochia,  and  St. 
Somebody-else  had  a  sister,  and  so  on.  And  as  he  saw 
more  and  more  of  Angelique's  character,  and  felt  her  prac 
tical  efficiency  in  church  work,  he  thought  it  would  be  very 
lovely  to  have  such  a  friend  all  to  himself.  Now,  friend 
ship  on  the  part  of  a  young  man  of  twenty-five  for  a  young 
saint  with  hazel  eyes  and  golden  hair,  with  white,  twin 
kling  hands  and  a  sweet  voice,  and  an  assemblage  of  varying 
glances,  dimples,  and  blushes,  is  certainly  a  most  interest 
ing  and  delightful  relation;  and  Mr.  St.  John  built  it  up 
and  adorned  it  with  all  sorts  of  charming  allegories  and 
figures  and  images,  making  a  sort  of  semi-celestial  affair 
of  it. 

It  is  true,  he  had  given  up  St.  Jerome's  love,  and  con 
cluded  that  it  was  not  necessary  that  his  "heart's  elect" 
should  be  worn  and  weary  and  wasted,  or  resemble  a  dying 
altar-fire;  he  had  learned  to  admire  Angle's  blooming  color 
and  elastic  step,  and  even  to  take  an  appreciative  delight 
in  the  prettinesses  of  her  toilet;  and,  one  evening,  when 
she  dropped  a  knot  of  peach-blow  ribbons  from  her  bosom, 
the  young  divine  had  most  unscrupulously  appropriated  the 
same,  and,  taking  it  home,  gloated  over  it  as  a  holy  relic, 
and  yet  he  never  suspected  that  he  was  in  love  —  oh,  no ! 
And,  at  this  moment,  when  his  voice  was  vibrating  with 


LOVE   IN   CHRISTMAS   GREENS  329 

that  strange  revealing  power  that  voices  sometimes  have  in 
moments  of  emotion,  when  the  very  tone  is  more  than  the 
words,  he,  poor  fellow,  was  ignorant  that  his  voice  had 
said  to  Angie,  "I  love  you  with  all  my  heart  and  soul." 

But  there  is  no  girl  so  uninstructed  and  so  inexperienced 
as  not  to  be  able  to  interpret  a  tone  like  this  at  once,  and 
Angie  at  this  moment  felt  a  sort  of  bewildering  .astonish 
ment  at  the  revelation.  All  seemed  to  go  round  and  round 
in  dizzy  mazes  —  the  greens,  the  red  berries  —  she  seemed 
to  herself  to  be  walking  in  a  dream,  and  Mr.  St.  John  with 
her.  She  looked  up  and  their  eyes  met,  and  at  that  mo 
ment  the  veil  fell  from  between  them.  His  great,  deep 
blue  eyes  had  in  them  an  expression  that  could  not  be 
mistaken. 

"Oh,  Mr.  St.  John!"  she  said. 

"Call  me  Arthur,"  he  said  entreatingly. 

"Arthur! "  she  said,  still  as  in  a  dream. 

"And  may  I  call  you  Angelique,  my  good  angel,  my 
guide  ?  Say  so ! "  he  added  in  a  rapid,  earnest  whisper, 
"  say  so,  dear,  dearest  Angie !  " 

"Yes,  Arthur,"  she  said,  still  wondering. 

"And,  oh,  love  me,"  he  added  in  a  whisper;  "a  little, 
ever  so  little!  You  cannot  think  how  precious  it  will  be 
to  me ! " 

"  Mr.  St.  John ! "  called  the  voice  of  Miss  Gusher. 

He  started  in  a  guilty  way,  and  came  out  from  behind 
the  thick  shadows  of  the  evergreen  which  had  concealed 
this  little  tete-a-tete.  He  was  all  of  a  sudden  transformed 
to  Mr.  St.  John,  the  rector  —  distant,  cold,  reserved,  and 
the  least  bit  in  the  world  dictatorial.  In  his  secret  heart 
Mr.  St.  John  did  riot  like  Miss  Gusher.  It  was  a  thing 
for  which  he  condemned  himself,  for  she  was  a  most  zeal 
ous  and  efficient  daughter  of  the  Church.  She  had  worked 
and  presented  a  most  elegant  set  of  altar-cloths,  and  had 
made  known  to  him  her  readiness  to  join  a  sisterhood 


330  WE  AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

whenever  he  was  ready  to  ordain  one.  And  she  always 
admired  him,  always  agreed  with  him,  and  never  criticised 
him,  which  perverse  little  Angie  sometimes  did;  and  yet 
ungrateful  Mr.  St.  John  was  wicked  enough  at  this  mo 
ment  to  wish  Miss  Gusher  at  the  bottom  of  the  Red  Sea, 
or  in  any  other  Scriptural  situation  whence  there  would  be 
no  probability  of  her  getting  at  him  for  a  season. 

"I  wanted  you  to  decide  on  this  decoration  for  the  font," 
she  said.  "Now,  there  is  this  green  wreath  and  this  red 
cross  of  bitter-sweet.  To  be  sure,  there  is  no  tradition 
about  bitter-sweet;  but  the  very  name  is  symbolical,  and 
I  thought  that  I  would  fill  the  font  with  calla  lilies. 
Would  lilies  at  Christmas  be  strictly  churchly  ?  That  is 
my  only  doubt.  I  have  always  seen  them  appropriated  to 
Easter.  What  should  you  say,  Mr.  St.  John  1  " 

"Oh,  have  them  by  all  means,  if  you  can,"  said  Mr.  St. 
John.  "Christmas  is  one  of  the  Church's  highest  festi 
vals,  and  I  admit  anything  that  will  make  it  beautiful." 

Mr.  St.  John  said  this  with  a  radiancy  of  delight  which 
Miss  Gusher  ascribed  entirely  to  his  approbation  of  her 
zeal;  but  the  heavens  and  the  earth  had  assumed  a  new 
aspect  to  him  since  that  little  talk  in  the  corner.  For 
when  Angie  lifted  her  eyes,  not  only  had  she  read  the 
unutterable  in  his,  but  he  also  had  looked  far  down  into 
the  depths  of  her  soul,  and  seen  something  he  did  not  quite 
dare  to  put  into  words,  but  in  the  light  of  which  his  whole 
life  now  seemed  transfigured.  It  was  a  new  and  amazing 
experience  to  Mr.  St.  John,  and  he  felt  strangely  happy, 
yet  particularly  anxious  that  Miss  Gusher  and  Miss  Vapors, 
and  all  the  other  tribe  of  his  devoted  disciples,  should  not 
by  any  means  suspect  what  had  fallen  out;  and  therefore 
it  was  that  he  assumed  such  a  cheerful  zeal  in  the  matter 
of  the  font  and  decorations. 

Meanwhile,  Angie  sat  in  her  quiet  corner,  like  a  good 
little  church  mouse,  working  steadily  and  busily  on  her 


LOVE   IN  CHRISTMAS   GREENS  331 

cross.  Just  as  she  had  put  in  the  last  bunch  of  bitter 
sweet,  Mr.  St.  John  was  again  at  her  elbow. 

"Angie,"  he  said,  "you  are  going  to  give  me  that  cross. 
I  want  it  for  my  study,  to  remember  this  morning  by." 

"But  I  made  it  for  the  front  of  the  organ." 

"Never  mind.  I  can  put  another  there;  but  this  is  to 
be  mine,"  he  said,  with  a  voice  of  appropriation.  "I  want 
it  because  you  were  making  it  when  you  promised  what 
you  did.  You  must  keep  to  that  promise,  Angie." 

"Oh  yes,  I  shall." 

"And  I  want  one  thing  more,"  he  said,  lifting  Angie's 
little  glove,  where  it  had  fallen  among  the  refuse  pieces. 

«  What !  —  my  glove  ?     Is  not  that  silly  ?  " 

"No,  indeed." 

"But  my  hands  will  be  cold." 

"Oh,  you  have  your  muff.  See  here:  I  want  it,"  he 
said,  "because  it  seems  so  much  like  you,  and  you  don't 
know  how  lonesome  I  feel  sometimes." 

Poor  man!  Angie  thought,  and  she  let  him  have  the 
glove.  "Oh,"  she  said  apprehensively,  "please  don't  stay 
here  now.  I  hear  Miss  Gusher  calling  for  you." 

"She  is  always  so  busy,"  said  he  in  a  tone  of  discon 
tent. 

"She  is  so  good,"  said  Angie,  "and  does  so  much." 

"Oh  yes,  good  enough,"  he  said  in  a  discontented 
tone,  retreating  backward  into  the  shadow  of  the  hemlock, 
and  so  rinding  his  way  round  into  the  body  of  the  church. 

But  there  is  no  darkness  or  shadow  of  death  where  a 
handsome,  engaging  young  rector  can  hide  himself  so  that 
the  truth  about  him  will  not  get  into  the  bill  of  some  bird 
of  the  air.  The  sparrows  of  the  sanctuary  are  many,  and 
they  are  particularly  wide  awake  and  watchful. 

Miss  Gusher  had  been  witness  of  this  last  little  bit  of 
interview;  and,  being  a  woman  of  mature  experience, 
versed  in  the  ways  of  the  world,  had  seen,  as  she  said, 


332  WE  AND  OUR  NEIGHBORS 

through  the  whole  matter.  "  Mr.  St.  John  is  just  like  all 
the  rest  of  them,  my  dear,'7  she  said  to  Miss  Vapors;  "he 
will  flirt,  if  a  girl  will  only  let  him.  I  saw  him  just  now 
with  that  Angie  Van  Arsdel.  Those  Van  Arsdel  girls  are 
famous  for  drawing  in  any  man  they  happen  to  associate 
with." 

"You  don't  say  so,"  said  Miss  Vapors;  "what  did  you 
see  ? " 

"Oh,  my  dear,  I  sha'n't  tell;  of  course,  I  don't  approve 
of  such  things,  and  it  lowers  Mr.  St.  John  in  my  esteem, 

—  so  I  'd  rather  not  speak  of  it.      I  did  hope  he  was  ahove 
such  things." 

"But  do  tell  me,  did  he  say  anything?"  said  Miss 
Vapors,  ready  to  burst  in  ignorance. 

"Oh  no.      1  only  saw  some  appearances  and  expressions 

—  a  certain  manner  "between  them  that  told  all.      Sophro- 
nia  Vapors,  you  mark  my  words:   there  is  something  going 
on  between  Angie  Van  Arsdel  and  Mr.  St.  John.      I  don't 
see,  for  my  part,  what  it  is  in  those  Van  Arsdel  girls  that 
the  men  see;  but,  sure  as  one  of  them  is  around,  there  is 
a  flirtation  got  up." 

"Why,  they  're  not  so  very  beautiful,"  said  Miss 
Vapors. 

"Oh,  dear,  no.  I  never  thought  them  even  pretty;  but 
then,  you  see,  there  's  no  accounting  for  those  things." 

And  so,  while  Mr.  St.  John  and  Angie  were  each  won 
dering  secretly  over  the  amazing  world  of  mutual  under 
standing  that  had  grown  up  between  them,  the  rumor  was 
spreading  and  growing  in  all  the  band  of  Christian  workers. 


CHAPTEE   XXXVII 

THEREAFTER 

ACCORDING  to  the  view  of  the  conventional  world,  the 
brief,  sudden  little  passage  between  Mr.  St.  John  and 
Angelique  among  the  Christmas  greens  was  to  all  intents 
and  purposes  equivalent  to  an  engagement;  and  yet,  St. 
John  had  not  actually  at  that  time  any  thought  of  mar 
riage. 

"Then,"  says  Mrs.  Materfamilias,  ruffling  her  plumage, 
in  high  moral  style,  "he  is  a  man  of  no  principle  —  and 
acts  abominably."  You  are  wrong,  dear  madam;  Mr.  St. 
John  is  a  man  of  high  principle,  a  man  guided  by  con 
science,  and  who  would  honestly  sooner  die  than  do  a 
wrong  thing. 

"  Well,  what  does  he  mean  then,  talking  in  this  sort  of 
way  to  Angie,  if  he  has  no  intentions  ?  He  ought  to  know 
better." 

Undoubtedly,  he  ought  to  know  better,  but  he  does  not. 
He  knows  at  present  neither  his  own  heart  nor  that  of 
womankind,  and  is  ignorant  of  the  real  force  and  meaning 
of  what  he  has  been  saying  and  looking,  and  of  the  obliga 
tions  which  they  impose  on  him  as  a  man  of  honor.  Hav 
ing  been,  all  his  life,  only  a  recluse  and  student,  having 
planned  his  voyage  of  life  in  a  study,  where  rocks  and 
waves  and  breakers  and  shoals  are  but  so  many  points  on 
paper,  it  is  not  surprising  that  he  finds  himself  somewhat 
ignorant  in  actual  navigation,  where  rocks  and  shoals  are 
quite  another  affair.  It  is  one  thing  to  lay  down  one's 
scheme  and  law  of  life  in  a  study,  among  supposititious 


334  WE  AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

men  and  women,  and  another  to  carry  it  out  in  life  among 
real  ones,  each  one  of  whom  acts  upon  us  with  the  develop 
ing  force  of  sunshine  on  the  seed-germ. 

In  fact,  no  man  knows  what  there  is  in  himself  till  he 
has  tried  himself  under  the  influence  of  other  men ;  and  if 
this  is  true  of  man  over  man,  how  much  more  of  that  sub 
tle  developing  and  revealing  power  of  woman  over  man. 
St.  John,  during  the  first  part  of  his  life,  had  been  pos 
sessed  by  that  sort  of  distant  fear  of  womankind  which  a 
person  of  acute  sensibility  has  of  that  which  is  bright, 
keen,  dazzling,  and  beyond  his  powers  of  management, 
and  which,  therefore,  seems  to  him  possessed  of  indefinite 
powers  for  mischief.  It  was  something  with  which  he  felt 
unable  to  cope.  He  had,  too,  the  common  prejudice 
against  fashionable  girls  and  women  as  of  course  wanting 
in  earnestness;  and  he  entered  upon  his  churchly  career 
with  a  sort  of  hard  determination  to  have  no  trifling,  and 
to  stand  in  no  relation  to  this  suspicious  light  guerrilla 
force  of  the  Church  but  that  of  a  severe  drill-sergeant. 

To  his  astonishment,  the  child  whom  he  had  undertaken 
to  drill  had  more  than  once  perforce,  and  from  the  very 
power  of  her  womanly  nature,  proved  herself  competent  to 
guide  him  in  many  things  which  belonged  to  the  very 
essence  of  his  profession  —  church  work.  Angie  had  been 
able  to  enter  places  whence  he  had  been  excluded;  able  to 
enter  by  those  very  attractions  of  life  and  gayety  and  pret- 
tiness  which  had  first  led  him  to  set  her  down  as  unfit  for 
serious  work. 

He  saw  with  his  own  eyes  that  a  bright  little  spirit, 
with  twinkling  ornaments,  and  golden  hair,  and  a  sweet 
voice,  could  go  into  the  den  of  John  Price  in  his  surliest 
mood,  could  sing,  and  get  his  children  to  singing,  till  he 
was  as  persuadable  in  her  hands  as  a  bit  of  wax;  that  she 
could  scold  and  lecture  him  at  her  pleasure,  and  get  him 
to  making  all  kinds  of  promises;  in  fact  that  he,  St.  John 


THEREAFTER  335 

himself,  owed  his  entree  into  the  house,  and  his  recogni 
tion  there  as  a  clergyman,  to  Angie's  good  offices  and  per 
sistent  entreaties. 

Instead  of  being  leader,  he  was  himself  being  led.  This 
divine  child  was  becoming  to  him  a  mystery  of  wisdom; 
and,  so  far  from  feeling  himself  competent  to  be  her  in 
structor,  he  came  to  occupy,  as  regards  many  of  the  details 
of  his  work,  a  most  catechetical  attitude  towards  her,  and 
was  ready  to  accept  almost  anything  she  told  him. 

St.  John  was,  from  first  to  last,  an  idealist.  It  was 
ideality  that  inclined  him  from  the  barren  and  sterile  chill- 
ness  of  New  England  dogmatism  to  the  picturesque  forms 
and  ceremonies  of  a  warmer  ritual.  His  conception  of  a 
church  was  a  fair  ideal;  such  as  a  poet  might  worship, 
such  as  this  world  has  never  seen  in  reality,  and  probably 
never  will.  His  conception  of  a  life-work  —  of  the  priestly 
office,  with  all  that  pertains  to  it  —  belonged  to  that  realm 
of  poetry  that  is  above  the  matter-of-fact  truths  of  experi 
ence,  and  is  sometimes  in  painful  conflict  with  them. 
What  wonder,  then,  if  love,  the  eternal  poem,  the  great 
ideal  of  ideals,  came  over  him  without  precise  limits  and 
exact  definitions  —  that  when  the  divine  cloud  oversha 
dowed  him  he  "wist  not  what  he  said  "  1 

St.  John  certainly  never  belonged  to  that  class  of  clergy 
men  who,  on  being  assured  of  a  settlement  and  a  salary, 
resolve,  in  a  general  way,  to  marry,  and  look  up  a  wife 
and  a  cooking-stove  at  the  same  time;  who  take  lists  of 
eligible  women,  and  have  the  conditional  refusal  of  a  house 
in  their  pockets,  when  they  go  to  make  proposals.  In  fact, 
he  had  had  some  sort  of  semi-poetical  ideas  of  a  diviner 
life  of  priestly  self-devotion  and  self-consecration,  in  which 
woman  can  have  no  part.  He  had  been  fascinated  by  cer 
tain  strains  of  writing  in  some  of  the  devout  Anglicans 
whose  works  furnished  most  of  the  studies  of  his  library; 
so  that  far  from  setting  it  down  in  a  general  way  that  he 


336  WE   AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

must  some  time  marry,  he  had, 'up  to  this  time,  shaped  his 
ideal  of  life  in  a  contrary  direction.  He  had  taken  no 
vows;  he  had  as  yet  taken  no  steps  towards  the  practical 
working  out  of  any  scheme;  but  there  floated  vaguely 
through  his  head  the  idea  of  a  celibate  guild  —  a  brother 
hood  who  should  revive,  in  dusty  modern  New  York,  some 
of  the  devout  conventual  fervors  of  the  Middle  Ages.  A 
society  of  brothers,  living  in  a  round  of  daily  devotions 
and  holy  ministration,  had  been  one  of  the  distant  dreams 
of  his  future  cloudland. 

And  now,  for  a  month  or  two,  he  had  been  like  a 
charmed  bird,  fluttering  in  nearer  and  nearer  circles  about 
this  dazzling,  perplexing,  repellent  attraction.  For  weeks, 
unconsciously  to  himself,  he  had  had  but  one  method  of 
marking  and  measuring  his  days:  there  were  the  days 
when  he  expected  to  see  her,  and  the  days  when  he  did 
not;  and  wonderful  days  were  interposed  between,  when 
he  saw  her  unexpectedly  —  as,  somehow,  happened  quite 
often. 

We  believe  it  is  a  fact  not  yet  brought  clearly  under 
scientific  investigation  as  to  its  causes,  but  a  fact,  neverthe 
less,  that  young  people  who  have  fallen  into  the  trick  of 
thinking  about  each  other  when  separated  are  singularly 
apt  to  meet  each  other  in  their  daily  walks  and  ways. 
Victor  Hugo  has  written  the  "Idyl  of  the  Rue  Plumette;" 
there  are  also  Idyls  of  the  modern  city  of  New  York. 
At  certain  periods  in  the  progress  of  the  poem,  one  such 
chance  glimpse,  or  moment  of  meeting,  at  a  street  corner 
or  on  a  door-step,  is  the  event  of  the  day. 

St.  John  was  sure  of  Angie  at  her  class  on  Sunday 
mornings,  and  at  service  afterwards.  He  was  sure  of  her 
on  Thursday  evenings,  at  Eva's  reception;  and  then, 
besides,  somehow,  when  she  was  around  looking  up  her 
class  on  Saturday  afternoons,  it  was  so  natural  that  he 
should  catch  a  glimpse  of  her  now  and  then,  coming  out 


THEREAFTER  337 

of  that  house,  or  going  into  that  door;  and  then,  in  the 
short  days  of  winter,  the  darkness  often  falls  so  rapidly 
that  it  often  struck  him  as  absolutely  necessary  that  he 
should  see  her  safely  home:  and,  in  all  these  moments  of 
association,  he  felt  a  pleasure  so  strange  and  new  and 
divine  that  it  seemed  to  him  as  if  his  whole  life  until  he 
knew  her  had  been  flowerless  and  joyless.  He  pitied 
himself,  when  he  thought  that  he  had  never  known  his 
mother  and  had  never  had  a  sister.  That  must  be  why  he 
had  known  so  little  of  what  it  was  so  lovely  and  beautiful 
to  know. 

Love,  to  an  idealist,  comes  not  first  from  earth,  but 
heaven.  It  comes  as  an  exaltation  of  all  the  higher  and 
nobler  faculties,  and  is  its  own  justification  in  the  fuller 
nobleness,  the  translucent  purity,  the  larger  generosity, 
and  warmer  piety,  it  brings.  The  trees  do  not  examine 
themselves  in  spring-time,  when  every  bud  is  thrilling  with 
a  new  sense  of  life  —  they  Hue. 

Never  had  St.  John's  life-work  looked  to  him  so  attrac 
tive,  so  possible,  so  full  of  impulse;  and  he  worshiped  the 
star  that  had  risen  on  his  darkness,  without  as  yet  a 
thought  of  the  future.  As  yet,  he  thought  of  her  only  as 
a  vision,  an  inspiration,  an  image  of  almost  childlike  inno 
cence  and  purity,  which  he  represented  to  himself  under 
all  the  poetic  forms  of  saintly  legend.  She  was  the  St. 
Agnes,  the  child  Christian,  the  sacred  lamb  of  Christ's 
fold.  She  was  the  holy  Dorothea,  who  wore  in  her  bosom 
the  roses  of  heaven,  and  had  fruits  and  flowers  of  paradise 
to  give  to  mortals;  and  when  he  left  her,  after  ever  so 
brief  an  interview,  he  fancied  that  one  leaf  from  the  tree 
of  life  had  fluttered  to  his  bosom.  He  illuminated  the 
text,  "  Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart, "  in  white  lilies,  and 
hung  it  over  his  prie-dieu  in  memorial  of  her,  and  some 
times  caught  himself  singing :  — 

"  I  can  but  know  thee  as  my  star, 
My  angel  and  my  dream." 


338  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

As  yet,  the  thought  had  not  yet  arisen  in  him  of  appro 
priating  his  angel  guide.  It  was  enough  to  love  her  with 
the  reverential,  adoring  love  he  gave  to  all  that  was  holiest 
and  purest  within  him,  to  enshrine  her  as  his  ideal  of 
womanhood. 

'  He  undervalued  himself  in  relation  to  her.  He  seemed 
to  himself  coarse  and  clumsy,  in  the  light  of  her  intuitions, 
as  he  knew  himself  utterly  unskilled  and  untrained  in  the 
conventional  modes  and  usages  of  the  society  in  which  he 
had  begun  to  meet  her,  and  where  he  saw  her  moving  with 
such  deft  ability,  and  touching  every  spring  with  such  easy 
skill.  Still  he  felt  a  craving  to  be  something  to  her. 
Why  might  she  not  be  a  sister  to  him,  to  him  who  had 
never  known  a  sister  1  It  was  a  happy  thought,  one  that 
struck  him  as  perfectly  new  and  original,  though  it  was  — 
had  he  only  known  it  —  a  well-worn,  mossy  old  mile-stone 
that  had  been  passed  by  generations  on  the  pleasant  jour 
ney  to  Eden.  He  had  not,  however,  had  the  least  inten 
tion  of  saying  a  word  of  this  kind  to  Angie  when  he  came 
to  the  chapel  that  morning.  But  he  had  been  piqued  by 
her  quiet,  resolute  little  way  of  dissent  from  the  flood  of 
admiration  which  his  illumination  had  excited.  He  had 
been  a  little  dissatisfied  with  the  persistent  adulation  of 
his  flock,  and,  like  Zeuxis,  felt  a  disposition  to  go  after 
the  blush  of  the  maiden  who  fled.  It  was  not  the  first 
time  that  Angie  had  held  her  own  opinion  against  him, 
and  turned  away  with  that  air  of  quiet  resolution  which 
showed  that  she  had  a  reserved  force  in  herself  that  he 
longed  to  fathom.  Then,  in  the  little  passage  that  fol 
lowed  came  one  of  those  sudden  overflows  that  Longfellow 
tells  of:  — 

"  There  are  moments  in  life  when  the  heart  is  so  full  of  emotion 
That  if  by  chance  it  be  shaken,  or  into  its  depths  like  a  pebble 
Drops  some  careless  word,  it  overflows,  and  its  secret, 
Spilt  on  the  ground  like  water,  can  never  be  gathered  together." 


THEREAFTER  339 

St.  John's  secret  looked  out  of  his  eager  eyes;  and,  in 
fact,  he  was  asking  for  Angie's  whole  heart,  while  his 
words  said  only,  "Love  me  as  a  brother."  A  man,  unfor 
tunately,  cannot  look  into  his  own  eyes,  and  does  not 
always  know  what  they  say.  But  a  woman  may  look  into 
them;  and  Angie,  though  little  in  person  and  childlike  in 
figure,  had  in  her  the  concentrated,  condensed  essence  of 
womanhood  —  all  its  rapid  foresight ;  its  keen  flashes  of 
intuition;  its  ready  self-command,  and  something  of  that 
maternal  care-taking  instinct  with  which  Eve  is  ever  on 
the  alert  to  prevent  a  blunder  or  mistake  on  the  part  of 
the  less  perceiving  Adam. 

She  felt  the  tones  of  his  voice.  She  knew  that  he  was 
saying  more  than  he  was  himself  aware  of,  and  that  there 
were  prying  eyes  about;  and  she  knew,  too,  with  a  flash 
of  presentiment,  what  would  be  the  world's  judgment  of 
so  innocent  a  brotherly  and  sisterly  alliance  as  had  been 
proposed  and  sealed  by  the  sacrifice  of  her  glove.  She 
laughed  a  little  to  herself,  fancying  her  brother  Tom's 
wanting  her  glove,  or  addressing  her  in  the  reverential 
manner  and  with  the  beseeching  tones  that  she  had  just 
heard.  Certainly  she  would  be  a  sister  to  him,  she 
thought,  and,  the  next  time  she  met  him  at  Eva's  alone, 
she  would  use  her  liberty  to  reprove  him  for  his  impru 
dence  in  speaking  to  her  in  that  way  when  so  many  were 
looking  on.  The  little  empress  knew  her  ground;  and 
that  it  was  hers  now  to  dictate  and  his  to  obey. 


CHAPTER   XXXVIII 


EVA  was  at  the  chapel  that  morning  and  overheard,  of 
the  conversation  between  Miss  Gusher  and  Miss  Vapors, 
just  enough  to  pique  her  curiosity  and  rouse  her  alarm. 
Of  all  things,  she  dreaded  any  such  report  getting  into  the 
whirlwind  of  gossip  that  always  eddies  round  a  church 
door  where  there  is  an  interesting,  unmarried  rector,  and 
she  resolved  to  caution  Angie  on  the  very  first  opportunity ; 
and  so,  when  her  share  of  wreaths  and  crosses  was  finished, 
and  the  afternoon  sun  began  to  come  level  through  the 
stained  windows,  she  crossed  over  to  Angie's  side,  to  take 
her  home  with  her  to  dinner. 

"I  've  something  to  tell  you,"  she  said,  "and  you  must 
come  home  and  stay  with  me  to-night."  And  so  Angie 
came. 

"Do  you  know,"  said  Eva,  as  soon  as  the  sisters  found 
themselves  alone  in  her  chamber,  where  they  were  laying 
off  their  things  and  preparing  for  dinner,  "do  you  know 
that  Miss  Gusher?" 

"I  —  no,  very  slightly, "  said  Angie,  shaking  out  her  shawl 
to  fold  it.  "She  's  a  very  cultivated  woman,  I  believe." 

"Well,  I  heard  her  saying  some  disagreeable  things 
about  you  and  Mr.  St.  John  this  morning, "  said  Eva, 

The  blood  flushed  in  Angie's  cheek,  and  she  turned 
quickly  to  the  glass  and  began  arranging  her  hair. 

"  What  did  she  say  1 "  she  inquired. 

"  Something  about  the  Van  Arsdel  girls  always  getting 
up  flirtations." 


"  WE   MUST   BE   CAUTIOUS  "  341 

"Nonsense!  how  hateful!  I'm  sure  it's  no  fault  of 
mine  that  Mr.  St.  John  came  and  spoke  to  me." 

"  Then  he  did  come  1 " 

"  Oh  yes ;  I  was  perfectly  astonished.  I  was  sitting  all 
alone  in  that  dark  corner  where  the  great  hemlock-tree 
was,  and  the  first  I  knew  he  was  there.  You  see,  I  criti 
cised  his  illuminated  card  —  that  one  in  the  strange,  queer 
letters  —  I  said  I  could  n't  understand  it;  but  Miss  Gusher, 
Miss  Vapors,  and  all  the  girls  were  oh-ing  and  ah-ing 
about  it,  and  I  felt  quite  snubbed  and  put  down.  I  sup 
posed  it  must  be  my  stupidity,  and  so  I  just  went  off  to 
my  tree  and  sat  down  to  work  quietly  in  the  dark  corner, 
and  left  Miss  Gusher  expatiating  on  mottoes  and  illumina 
tions.  I  knew  she  was  very  accomplished  and  clever  and 
all  that,  and  that  I  did  n't  know  anything  about  such 
things." 

"Well,  then,"  said  Eva,  "he  followed  you?" 

"  Yes,  he  came  suddenly  in  from  the  vestry  behind  the 
tree,  and  I  thought,  or  hoped,  he  stood  so  that  nobody 
noticed  us,  and  he  insisted  on  my  telling  him  why  I 
didn't  like  his  illumination.  I  said  I  did  like  it,  that  I 
thought  it  was  beautifully  done,  but  that  I  did  not  think 
it  would  be  of  any  use  to  those  poor  children  and  folks 
to  have  inscriptions  that  they  didn't  understand;  and  he 
said  I  was  right,  and  that  he  should  alter  it  and  put  it  in 
plain  English;  and  then  he  said,  what  a  help  it  was  to 
have  a  woman's  judgment  on  things,  what  a  misfortune  it 
was  that  he  had  never  had  a  sister  or  any  friend  of  that 
kind,  and  then  he  asked  me  to  be  a  sister  to  him,  and  tell 
him  frankly  always  just  what  I  thought  of  him,  and  I  said 
I  would.  And  then  "  — 

"What  then?" 

"Oh,  Eva,  I  can't  tell  you;  but  he  spoke  so  earnestly 
and  quick,  and  asked  me  if  I  couldn't  love  him  just  a 
little;  he  asked  me  to  call  him  Arthur,  and  then,  if  you 


342  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

believe  me,  he  would  have  me  give  him  my  glove,  and  so 
I  let  him  take  it,  because  I  was  afraid  some  of  those  girls 
would  see  us  talking  together.  I  felt  almost  frightened 
that  he  should  speak  so,  and  I  wanted  him  to  go  away." 

"  Well,  Angie  dear,  what  do  you  think  of  all  this  1 " 

"I  know  he  cares  for  me  very  much,"  said  Angie 
quickly,  "more  than  he  says." 

"And  you,  Angie? " 

"I  think  he's  good  and  noble  and  true,  and  I  love 
him." 

"As  a  sister,  of  course,"  said  Eva,  laughing. 

"Never  mind  how  —  I  love  him,"  said  Angie;  "and  I 
shall  use  my  sisterly  privilege  to  caution  him  to  be  very 
distant  and  dignified  to  me  in  future,  when  those  prying 
eyes  are  around." 

"  Well,  now,  darling, "  said  Eva,  with  all  the  conscious 
dignity  of  early  matronage,  "we  shall  have  to  manage  this 
matter  very  prudently  —  for  those  girls  have  had  their  sus 
picions  aroused,  and  you  know  how  such  things  will  fly 
through  the  air.  The  fact  is,  there  is  nothing  so  perplex 
ing  as  just  this  state  of  things;  when  you  know  as  well  as 
you  know  anything  that  a  man  is  in  love  with  you,  and 
yet  you  are  not  engaged  to  him.  I  know  all  about  the 
trouble  of  that,  I'm  sure;  and  it  seems  to  me,  what  with 
mamma,  Aunt  Maria,  and  all  the  rest  of  them,  it  was  a 
perfect  marvel  how  Harry  and  I  ever  came  together.  Now, 
there  's  that  Miss  Gusher,  she  '11  be  on  the  watch  all  the 
time,  like  a  cat  at  a  mouse-hole;  and  she's  going  to  be 
there  when  we  get  the  Christmas  tree  ready  and  tie  on  the 
things,  and  you  must  manage  to  keep  as  far  off  from  him 
as  possible.  I  shall  be  there,  and  I  shall  have  my  eyes  in 
my  head,  I  promise  you.  We  must  try  to  lull  their  sus 
picions  to  sleep." 

"Dear  me,"  said  Angie,  "how  disagreeable!" 

"I  'm  sorry  for  you,  darling,  but  I  've  kept  it  off  as  long 


343 

as  I  could;  I've  seen  for  a  long  time  how  things  are 
going." 

"You  have?     Oh,  Eva!" 

"Yes;  and  I  have  had  all  I  could  do  to  keep  Jim 
Fellows  from  talking,  and  teasing  you,  as  he  has  heen 
perfectly  longing  to  do  for  a  month  past." 

"You  don't  say  that  Jim  has  noticed  anything?" 

"  Yes,  Jim  noticed  his  looking  at  you,  the  very  first 
thing  after  he  came  to  Sunday-school." 

"Well,  now,  at  first  I  noticed  that  he  looked  at  me 
often,  but  I  thought  it  was  because  he  saw  something  he 
disapproved  of  —  and  it  used  to  embarrass  me.  Then  I 
thought  he  seemed  to  avoid  me,  and  I  wondered  why. 
And  I  wondered,  too,  why  he  always  would  take  occasion 
to  look  at  me.  I  noticed,  when  your  evenings  first  began, 
that  he  never  came  near  me,  and  never  spoke  to  me,  and 
yet  his  eyes  were  following  me  wherever  I  went.  The 
first  evening  you  had,  he  walked  round  and  round  me 
nearly  the  whole  evening,  and  never  spoke  a  word;  then 
suddenly  he  came  and  sat  down  by  me,  when  I  was  sitting 
by  Mrs.  Betsey,  and  gave  me  a  message  from  the  Prices; 
but  he  spoke  in  such  a  stiff,  embarrassed  way,  and  then 
there  was  an  awful  pause,  and  suddenly  he  got  up  and 
went  away  again ;  and  poor  little  Mrs.  Betsey  said,  *  Bless 
me,  how  stiff  and  ungracious  he  is ; '  and  I  said  that  I 
believed  he  wasn't  much  used  to  society  —  but  after  a 
while,  this  wore  away,  and  he  became  very  social,  and  we 
grew  better  and  better  acquainted  all  the  time.  Although 
I  was  a  little  contradictious,  and  used  to  controvert  some 
of  his  notions,  I  fancy  it  was  rather  a  novelty  to  him  to 
find  somebody  that  didn't  always  give  up  to  him,  for,  I 
must  say,  some  of  the  women  that  go  to  our  chapel  do 
make  fools  of  themselves  about  him.  It  really  provokes 
me  past  all  bearing.  If  anybody  could  set  me  against  a 
man,  it  would  be  those  silly,  admiring  women  who  have 


344  WE   AND    OUR   NEIGHBORS 

their  hands  and  eyes  always  raised  in  adoration,  whatever 
he  does.  It  annoys  him,  I  can  see,  for  it  is  very  much 
against  his  taste,  and  he  likes  me  because,  he  says,  I 
always  will  tell  him  the  truth." 

Meanwhile  St.  John  had  gone  back  to  his  study,  walk 
ing  as  on  a  cloud.  The  sunshine  streaming  into  a  western 
window  touched  the  white  lilies  over  his  prie-dieu  till 
they  seemed  alive.  He  took  down  the  illumination  and 
looked  at  it.  He  had  a  great  mind  to  give  this  to  her  as 
a  Christmas  present.  Why  not  ?  Was  she  not  to  be  his 
own  sister?  And  his  thoughts  strolled  along  through  plea 
sant  possibilities  and  all  the  privileges  of  a  brother.  Cer 
tainly,  he  longed  to  see  her  now,  and  talk  them  over  with 
her;  and  suddenly  it  occurred  to  him  that  there  were  a 
few  points  in  relation  to  the  arrangement  of  the  tree  about 
which  it  would  be  absolutely  necessary  to  get  the  opinion 
of  Mrs.  Henderson.  Whether  this  direction  of  the  path 
of  duty  had  any  relation  to  the  fact  that  he  had  last  seen 
her  going  away  from  the  vestry  arm  in  arm  with  Angie, 
we  will  not  assume  to  say;  but  the  solemn  fact  was  that, 
that  evening,  just  as  it  came  time  to  drop  the  lace  curtains 
over  the  Henderson  windows,  when  the  blazing  wood  fire 
was  winking  and  blinking  roguishly  at  the  brass  andirons, 
the  door-bell  rang,  and  in  he  walked. 

Angelique  had  her  lap  full  of  dolls,  and  was  sitting  like 
Iris  in  the  rainbow,  in  a  confused  melange  of  silks,  and 
gauzes,  and  tissues,  and  spangles.  Three  dressed  dolls 
were  propped  up  in  various  attitudes  around  her,  and  she 
was  holding  the  fourth,  while  she  fitted  a  sky-blue  man 
tilla  which  she  was  going  to  trim  with  silver  braid. 
Where  Angie  got  all  her  budget  of  fineries  was  a  standing 
mystery  in  the  household,  only  that  she  had  an  infinitely 
persuasive  tongue,  and  talked  supplies  out  of  admiring 
clerks  and  milliners'  apprentices.  It  was  a  pretty  picture 


"WE   MUST   BE   CAUTIOUS"  345 

to  see  her  there  in  the  warm,  glowing  room,  tossing  and 
turning  her  filmy  treasures,  and  cocking  her  little  head  on 
one  side  and  the  other  with  an  air  of  profound  reflection. 

Harry  was  gone  out.  Eva  was  knitting  a  comforter  in 
her  corner,  and  everything  was  as  still  and  as  cosy  as  heart 
could  desire,  when  St.  John  made  his  way  into  the  parlor 
and  got  himself  warmly  ensconced  in  his  favorite  niche. 
What  more  could  mortal  man  desire  1  He  talked  gravely 
with  Eva,  and  watched  Angie.  He  thought  of  a  lean, 
haggard  picture  of  a  St.  Mary  of  Egypt,  praying  forlornly 
in  the  desert,  that  had  hitherto  stood  in  his  study,  and  the 
idea  somehow  came  over  him  that  modern  New  York  saints 
had  taken  a  much  more  agreeable  turn  than  those  of  old. 
Was  it  not  better  to  be  dressing  dolls  for  poor  children 
than  to  be  rolling  up  one's  eyes  and  praying  alone  out  in 
a  desert?  In  his  own  mind  he  resolved  to  take  down  that 
picture  forthwith.  He  had,  in  his  overcoat  in  the  hall, 
his  illuminated  lilies,  wrapped  snugly  in  tissue  paper  and 
tied  with  a  blue  ribbon ;  and,  all  the  while  he  was  discours 
ing  with  Eva,  he  was  ruminating  how  he  could  see  Angie 
alone  a  minute,  just  long  enough  to  place  it  in  her  hands. 
Surely,  somebody  ought  to  make  her  a  Christmas  present, 
she  who  was  thinking  of  every  one  but  herself. 

Eva  was  one  of  the  class  of  diviners,  and  not  at  all  the 
person  to  sit  as  Madame  de  Trop  in  an  exigency  of  this 
sort,  and  so  she  had  a  sudden  call  to  consult  with  Mary  in 
the  kitchen. 

"Now  for  it,"  thought  St.  John,  as  he  rose  and  drew 
nearer.  Angie  looked  up  with  a  demure  consciousness. 

He  began  fingering  her  gauzes  and  her  scissors  uncon 
sciously. 

"Now,  now!  I  don't  allow  that,"  she  said  playfully,  as 
she  took  them  altogether  from  his  hand. 

"I  have  something  for  you,"  he  said  suddenly. 

"Something  for  me!"  with  a  bright,  amused  look. 
"Where  is  it?" 


346  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

St.  John  fumbled  a  moment  in  the  entry  and  brought  in 
his  parcel.  Angie  watched  him  untying  it  with  a  kittenish 
gravity.  He  laid  it  down  before  her.  "From  your  bro 
ther,  Angie,"  he  said. 

"Oh,  how  lovely!  how  beautiful!  Oh,  Mr.  St.  John, 
did  you  do  this  for  me  ?  " 

"It  was  of  you  I  was  thinking;  you,  my  inspiration  in 
all  that  is  holy  and  good ;  you  who  strengthen  and  help  me 
in  all  that  is  pure  and  heavenly." 

"Oh,  don't  say  that!" 

"It's  true,  Angie,  my  Angie,  my  angel.  I  knew  no 
thing  worthily  till  I  knew  you." 

Angie  looked  up  at  him;  her  eyes,  clear  and  bright  as 
a  bird's,  looked  into  his;  their  hands  clasped  together,  and 
then,  it  was  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world,  he  kissed 
her. 

"But,  Arthur,"  said  Angie,  "you  must  be  careful  not 
to  arouse  disagreeable  reports  and  gossip.  What  is  so 
sacred  between  us  must  not  be  talked  of.  Don't  look  at 
me,  or  speak  to  me,  when  others  are  present.  You  don't 
know  how  very  easy  it  is  to  make  people  talk." 

Mr.  St.  John  promised  all  manner  of  prudence,  and 
walked  home  delighted.  And  thus  these  two  Babes  in  the 
Wood  clasped  hands  with  each  other,  to  wander  up  and 
down  the  great  forest  of  life,  as  simply  and  sincerely  as  if 
they  had  been  Hensel  and  Gretel  in  the  fairy  story.  They 
loved  each  other,  wholly  trusted  each  other  without  a  ques 
tion,  and  were  walking  in  dreamland.  There  was  no 
question  of  marriage  settlements,  or  rent  and  taxes;  only 
a  joyous  delight  that  they  two  in  this  wilderness  world 
had  found  each  other. 

We  pity  him  who  does  not  know  that  there  is  nothing 
purer,  nothing  nearer  heaven  than  a  young  man's  first- 
enkindled  veneration  and  adoration  of  womanhood  in  the 
person  of  her  who  is  to  be  his  life's  ideal.  It  is  the  morn 
ing  dew  before  the  sun  arises. 


CHAPTER   XXXIX 

SAYS    SHE    TO    HER    NEIGHBOR WHAT 

"MY  dear,"  said  Mrs.  Dr.  Gracey  to  her  spouse,  "I 
have  a  great  piece  of  news  for  you  about  Arthur  —  they 
say  that  he  is  engaged  to  one  of  the  Van  Arsdel  girls." 

"Good,"  said  the  doctor,  pushing  up  his  spectacles. 
"It's  the  most  sensible  thing  I  have  heard  of  him  this 
long  while.  I  always  knew  that  boy  would  come  right  if 
he  were  only  let  alone.  How  did  you  hear  1  " 

"  Miss  Gusher  told  Mary  Jane.  She  charged  her  not  to 
tell;  but,  oh,  it's  all  over  town!  There  can  be  no  doubt 
about  it." 

"Why  hasn't  he  been  here,  then,  like  a  dutiful  nephew, 
to  tell  us,  I  should  like  to  know  ?  "  said  Dr.  Gracey. 

"Well,  I  believe  they  say  it  isn't  announced  yet;  but 
there  's  no  sort  of  doubt  of  it.  There  's  no  doubt,  at  any 
rate,  that  there  's  been  a  very  decided  intimacy,  and  that 
if  they  are  not  engaged,  they  ought  to  be;  and  as  I  know 
xlrthur  is  a  good  fellow,  I  know  it  must  be  all  right. 
Those  ritualistic  young  ladies  are  terribly  shocked.  Miss 
Gusher  says  that  her  idol  is  broken;  that  she  never  again 
shall  reverence  a  clergyman." 

"Very  likely.  A  Mrs.  St.  John  will  be  a  great  inter 
ruption  in  the  way  of  holy  confidences  and  confessionals, 
and  all  their  trumpery;  but  it 's  the  one  thing  needful  for 
Arthur.  A  good,  sensible  woman  for  a  wife  will  make 
him  a  capital  worker.  The  best  adviser  in  church  work 
is  a  good  wife:  and  the  best  school  of  the  church  is  a 
Christian  family.  That's  my  doctrine,  Mrs.  G." 


348  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBOES 

Mrs.  G.  blushed  at  the  implied  compliment,  while  the 
doctor  went  on :  — 

"Now,  I  never  felt  the  least  fear  of  how  Arthur  was 
coming  out,  and  I  take  great  credit  to  myself  for  not  oppos 
ing  him.  I  knew  a  young  man  must  do  a  certain  amount 
of  fussing  and  fizzling  before  he  settles  down  strong  and 
clear;  and  fighting  and  opposing  a  crotchety  fellow  does 
no  good.  I  think  I  have  kept  hold  on  Arthur  by  never 
rousing  his  combativeness  and  being  sparing  of  good  advice ; 
and  you  see  he  is  turning  right  already.  A  wife  will  put 
an  end  to  all  the  semi-monkish  trumpery  that  has  got 
itself  mixed  up  with  his  real  self-denying  labor.  A  woman 
is  capital  for  sweeping  down  cobwebs  in  Church  or  State. 
Well,  I  shall  call  on  Arthur  and  congratulate  him  forth 
with." 

Dr.  Gracey  was  Arthur's  maternal  uncle,  and  he  had 
always  kept  an  eye  upon  him  from  boyhood,  as  the  only 
son  of  a  favorite  sister. 

The  doctor,  himself  rector  of  a  large  and  thriving  church, 
was  a  fair  representative  of  that  exact  mixture  of  conser 
vatism  and  progress  which  characterizes  the  great,  steady 
middle  class  of  the  American  Episcopacy.  He  \vas  toler 
ant  and  fatherly  both  to  the  Ritualists,  who  overdo  on  one 
side,  and  the  Low  Church,  who  underdo  on  the  other. 
He  believed  largely  in  good  nature,  good  sense,  and  the 
expectant  treatment,  as  best  for  diseases  both  in  the 
churchly  and  medical  practice.  So,  when  he  had  suc 
ceeded  in  converting  his  favorite  nephew  to  Episcopacy, 
and  found  him  in  danger  of  using  it  only  as  a  half-way 
house  to  Rome,  he  took  good  heed  neither  to  snub  him, 
nor  to  sneer  at  him,  but  to  give  him  sympathy  in  all  the 
good  work  he  did,  and,  as  far  as  possible,  to  shield  him 
from  that  species  of  persecution  which  is  sure  to  endear  a 
man's  errors  to  him,  by  investing  them  with  a  kind  of 
pathos. 


SAYS   SHE   TO   HER   NEIGHBOR  —  WHAT  349 

"The  world  isn't  in  danger  from  the  multitudes  rushing 
into  extremes  of  self-sacrifice, "  the  doctor  said,  when  his 
wife  feared  that  Arthur  was  becoming  an  ascetic.  "Keep 
him  at  work;  work  will  bring  sense  and  steadiness.  Give 
him  his  head,  and  he  '11  pull  in  harness  all  right  by  and 
by.  A  colt  that  don't  kick  out  of  the  traces  a  little,  at 
first,  can't  have  much  blood  in  him." 

It  will  be  seen  by  the  subject-matter  of  this  conversation 
that  the  good  seed  which  had  been  sown  in  the  heart  of 
Miss  Gusher  had  sprung  up  and  borne  fruit  —  thirty,  sixty, 
and  a  hundred  fold,  as  is  the  wont  of  the  gourds  of  gossip 
—  more  rapid  by  half  in  their  growth  than  the  gourd  of 
Jonah,  and  not  half  as  consolatory.  In  fact,  the  gossip 
plant  is  like  the  grain  of  mustard  seed,  which,  though  it 
be  the  least  of  all  seeds,  becometh  a  great  tree,  and  the 
fowls  of  the  air  lodge  in  its  branches  and  chatter  mightily 
there  at  all  seasons. 

Miss  Gusher,  and  Miss  Vapors,  and  Miss  Rapture,  and 
old  Mrs.  Eyelet,  and  the  Misses  Glibbett,  so  well  employed 
their  time,  about  the  season  of  Christmas,  that  there  was 
not  a  female  person  in  the  limits  of  their  acquaintance  that 
had  not  had  the  whole  story  of  all  that  had  been  seen, 
surmised,  or  imagined,  related  as  a  profound  secret.  Notes 
were  collected  and  compared.  Mrs.  Eyelet  remembered 
that  she  had  twice  seen  Mr.  St.  John  attending  Angie  to 
her  door  about  nightfall.  Miss  Sykes,  visiting  one  after 
noon  in  the  same  district,  deposed  and  said  that  she  had 
met  them  coming  out  of  a  door  together.  She  was  quite 
sure  that  they  must  have  met  by  appointment.  Then,  oh, 
the  depths  of  possibility  that  the  gossips  saw  in  that  Hen 
derson  house!  Always  there,  every  Thursday  evening! 
On  intimate  terms  with  the  family. 

"Depend  upon  it,  my  dear,"  said  Mrs.  Eyelet,  "Mrs. 
Henderson  has  been  doing  all  she  could  to  catch  him. 
They  say  he  's  at  her  house  almost  constantly." 


350  WE  AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

Aunt  Maria's  plumage  rustled  with  maternal  solicitude. 
"I  don't  know  but  it  is  as  good  a  thing  as  we  could  expect 
for  Angie,"  said  she  to  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel.  "He  's  a  young 
man  of  good  family  and  independent  property.  I  don't 
like  his  ritualistic  notions,  to  be  sure;  but  one  can't  have 
everything.  And,  at  any  rate,  he  can't  become  a  Roman 
Catholic  if  he  gets  married  —  that 's  one  comfort." 

"There  he  goes!"  said  little  Mrs.  Betsey,  as  she  sat 
looking  through  the  blinds,  with  the  forgiven  Jack  on  her 
knee.  "He's  at  the  door  now.  Dorcas,  I  do  believe 
there  's  something  in  it." 

"  Something  in  what  1  "  said  Miss  Dorcas,  "  and  who  are 
you  talking  about,  Betsey  1 " 

"Why,  Mr.  St.  John  and  Angie.  He  's  standing  at  the 
door,  this  very  minute.  It  must  be  true.  I  'm  glad  of  it; 
only  he  is  n't  half  good  enough  for  her." 

"Well,  it  don't  follow  that  there  is  an  engagement  be 
cause  Mr.  St.  John  is  at  the  door,"  said  Miss  Dorcas. 

"  But  all  the  things  Mrs.  Eyelet  said,  Dorcas !  " 

"Mrs.  Eyelet  is  a  gossip,"  said  Miss  Dorcas  shortly. 

"But,  Dorcas,  I  really  thought  his  manner  to  her  last 
Thursday  was  particular.  Oh,  I  'm  sure  there  's  something 
in  it!  They  say  he  's  such  a  good  young  man,  and  inde 
pendently  rich.  I  wonder  if  they  '11  take  a  house  up  in 
this  neighborhood  1  It  would  be  so  nice  to  have  Angie 
within  calling  distance!  A  great  favorite  of  mine  is 
Angie." 


CHAPTER   XL 

THE    ENGAGEMENT    ANNOUNCED 

MEANWHILE  Dr.  Gracey  found  his  way  to  Arthur's 
study. 

"So,  Arthur,"  he  said,  "that  pretty  Miss  Van  Arsdel  'a 
engaged. " 

The  blank  expression  and  sudden  change  of  color  in  St. 
John's  face  was  something  quite  worthy  of  observation. 

"  Miss  Van  Arsdel  engaged ! "  he  repeated  with  a  gasp, 
feeling  as  if  the  ground  were  going  down  under  him. 

"Yes,  that  pretty  fairy,  Miss  Angelique,  you  know." 

"  How  did  you  hear  —  who  told  you  ?  " 

"How  did  I  hear?  Why,  it 's  all  over  town.  Arthur, 
you  bad  boy,  why  have  n't  you  told  me? ?? 

"Me?" 

"Yes,  you;  you  are  the  happy  individual.  I  came  to 
congratulate  you." 

St.  John  looked  terribly  confused. 

"Well,  we  are  not  really  exactly  engaged." 

"But  you  are  going  to  be,  I  understand.  So  far  so 
good.  I  like  the  family  —  good  stock  —  nothing  could  be 
better;  but,  Arthur,  let  me  tell  you,  you  'd  better  have  it 
announced  and  aboveboard  forthwith.  You  are  not  my 
sister's  son,  nor  the  man  I  took  you  for,  if  you  could  take 
advantage  of  the  confidence  inspired  by  your  position  to 
carry  on  a  flirtation." 

The  blood  flushed  into  St.  John's  cheeks.  "I'm  not 
flirting,  uncle;  that  vulgar  word  is  no  name  for  my  friend 
ship  with  Miss  Van  Arsdel.  It  is  as  sacred  as  the  altar. 


352  WE  AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

I  reverence  her;  I  love  her  with  all  my  heart.  I  would 
lay  down  my  life  for  her." 

"Good!  but  nobody  wants  you  to  lay  down  your  life. 
That  is  quite  foreign  to  the  purpose.  What  is  wanting  is, 
that  you  step  out  like  a  man  and  define  your  position  with 
regard  to  Miss  Van  Arsdel  before  the  world;  otherwise  all 
the  gossips  will  make  free  with  her  name  and  yours.  De 
pend  upon  it,  Arthur,  a  man  has  done  too  much  or  too 
little  when  a  young  lady's  name  is  in  every  one's  mouth 
in  connection  with  his,  without  a  definite  engagement." 

"It  is  all  my  fault,  uncle.  I  hadn't  the  remotest  idea. 
It's  all  my  fault  —  all.  I  had  no  thought  of  what  the 
world  would  say ;  no  idea  that  we  were  remarked  —  but, 
believe  me,  our  intimacy  has  been,  from  first  to  last,  en 
tirely  of  my  seeking.  It  has  grown  on  us  gradually,  till 
I  find  she  is  more  to  me  than  any  one  ever  has  been  or  can 
be.  Whether  I  am  as  much  to  her,  I  cannot  tell.  My 
demands  have  been  humble.  We  are  not  engaged,  but  it 
shall  not  be  my  fault  if  another  day  passes  and  we  are 
not." 

"Eight,  my  boy.  I  knew  you.  You  were  no  nephew 
of  mine  if  you  didn't  feel,  when  your  eyes  were  open, 
the  honor  of  the  thing.  God  made  you  a  gentleman  before 
he  made  you  a  priest,  and  there  's  but  one  way  for  a  gentle 
man  in  a  case  like  this.  If  there  's  anything  I  despise, 
it 's  a  priest  who  uses  his  priestly  influence,  under  this  fine 
name  and  that,  to  steal  from  a  woman  love  that  doesn't 
belong  to  him,  and  that  he  never  can  return,  and  never 
ought  to.  If  a  man  thinks  he  can  do  more  good  as  a  single 
man  and  a  missionary,  well;  I  honor  him,  but  let  him 
make  the  sacrifice  honestly.  Don't  let  him  want  pretty 
girls  for  intimate  friends  or  guardian  angels,  or  Christian 
sisters,  or  any  such  trumpery.  It 's  dishonest  and  disloyal; 
it  is  unfair  to  the  woman  and  selfish  in  the  man." 

"Well,  uncle,  I  trust  you  say  all  this  because  you  don't 


THE  ENGAGEMENT  ANNOUNCED        353 

think  it  of  me;  as  I  know  my  heart  before  God,  I  say  I 
have  not  been  doing  so  mean  and  cowardly  a  thing.  There 
was  a  time  when  I  thought  I  never  should  marry.  Those 
were  my  days  of  ignorance.  I  did  not  know  how  much 
a  true  woman  might  teach  me,  and  how  much  I  needed 
such  a  guide,  even  in  my  church  work." 

"In  short,  my  boy,  you  found  out  that  the  Lord  was 
rjght  when  he  said,  '  It  is  not  good  for  man  to  be  alone. ' 
We  pay  the  Lord  the  compliment  once  in  a  while  to  be 
lieve  he  knows  best.  Depend  on  it,  Arthur,  that  Chris 
tian  families  are  the  Lord's  church,  and  better  than  any 
guild  of  monks  and  nuns  whatsoever." 

All  which  was  listened  to  by  Mr.  St.  John  with  a  radi 
ant  countenance.  It  is  all  down-hill  when  you  are  show 
ing  a  man  that  it  is  his  duty  to  do  what  he  wants  to  do. 
Six  months  before,  St.  John  would  have  fought  every 
proposition  of  this  speech,  and  brought  up  the  whole  of 
the  Middle  Ages  to  back  him.  Now,  he  was  as  tractable 
as  heart  could  wish. 

"After  all,  uncle,"  he  said,  at  last,  "what  if  she  will 
not  have  me  1  And  what  if  I  am  not  the  man  to  make 
her  happy  1 " 

"Oh,  if  you  ask  prettily,  I  fancy  she  won't  say  nay; 
and  then  you  must  make  her  happy.  There  are  no  two 
ways  about  that,  my  boy." 

"I  'm  not  half  good  enough  for  her,"  said  St.  John. 

"Like  enough.  We  are  none  of  us  good  enough  for 
these  women;  but,  luckily,  that  isn't  apt  to  be  their 
opinion. " 

St.  John  started  out  from  the  conference  with  an  alert 
step.  In  two  days  more,  rumor  was  met  with  open  confir 
mation.  St.  John  had  had  the  decisive  interview  with 
Angie,  had  seen  and  talked  with  her  father  and  mother, 
and  been  invited  to  a  family  dinner;  and  Angie  wore  on 
her  finger  an  engagement  ring.  There  was  no  more  to  be 


354  WE  AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

said  now.  Mr.  St.  John  was  an  idol  who  had  stepped 
down  from  his  pedestal  into  the  ranks  of  common  men. 
He  was  no  longer  a  mysterious  power  —  an  angel  of  the 
churches,  but  a  man  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Neverthe 
less,  it  is  an  undoubted  fact  that,  for  all  the  purposes  of 
this  mortal  life,  a  good  man  is  better  than  an  angel. 

But  not  so  thought  the  ecstasia  of  his  chapel.  A  holy 
father,  in  a  long  black  gown,  with  a  cord  round  his  waist, 
and  with  a  skull  and  hour-glass  in  his  cell,  is  somehow 
thought  to  be  nearer  to  heaven  than  a  family  man  with  a 
market- basket  on  his  arm;  but  we  question  whether  the 
angels  themselves  think  so.  There  may  be  as  holy  and 
unselfish  a  spirit  in  the  way  a  market-basket  is  filled  as  in 
a  week  of  fasting;  and  the  oil  of  gladness  may  make  the 
heavenward  wheels  run  more  smoothly  than  the  spirit  of 
heaviness.  The  first  bright  day,  St.  John  took  Angie  a 
drive  in  the  Park,  a  proceeding  so  evidently  of  the  earth, 
earthy,  that  Miss  Gusher  hid  her  face,  after  the  manner 
of  the  seraphim,  as  he  passed ;  but  he  and  Angie  were  too 
happy  and  too  busy  in  their  new  world  to  care  who  looked 
or  who  didn't,  and  St.  John  rather  triumphantly  remem 
bered  the  free  assertion  of  the  great  apostle,  "Have  we  not 
power  to  lead  about  a  sister  or  a  wife  1 "  and  felt  sure  that 
he  should  have  been  proud  and  happy  to  show  Angie  to 
St.  Paul  himself. 

Alice  was  at  first  slightly  disappointed,  but  the  compen 
sation  of  receiving  so  very  desirable  a  brother-in-law  recon 
ciled  her  to  the  loss  of  her  poetic  and  distant  ideal. 

As  to  little  Mrs.  Betsey,  she  fell  upon  Angie 's  neck  in 
rapture;  and  her  joy  was  heightened  in  the  convincing 
proof  that  she  was  now  able  to  heap  upon  the  unbelieving 
head  of  Dorcas  that  she  had  been  in  the  right  all  along. 
When  dear  little  Mrs.  Betsey  was  excited,  her  words  and 
thoughts  came  so  thick  that  they  were  like  a  flock  of  mar 
tins,  all  trying  to  get  out  of  a  martin-box  together,  —  chat- 


%          THE  ENGAGEMENT  ANNOUNCED        355 

tering,  twittering,  stumbling  over  each  other,  and  coming 
out  at  heads  and  points  in  a  wonderful  order.  When  the 
news  had  been  officially  sealed  to  her,  she  begged  the  right 
to  carry  it  to  Dorcas,  and  ran  home  and  burst  in  upon  her 
with  shining  eyes  and  two  little  pink  spots  in  her  cheeks. 

"There,  Dorcas,  they  are  engaged.  Now,  didn't  I  say 
so,  Dorcas?  I  knew  it.  I  told  you  so,  that  Thursday 
evening.  Oh,  you  can't  fool  me;  and  that  day  I  saw  him 
standing  on  the  door-step !  I  was  just  as  certain !  I  saw 
it  just  as  plain!  What  a  shame  for  people  to  talk  about 
him  as  they  do,  and  say  he  's  going  to  Borne.  I  wonder 
what  they  think  now  ?  The  sweetest  girl  in  New  York, 
certainly.  Oh !  and  that  ring  he  bought !  Just  as  if  he 
could  be  a  Roman  Catholic!  It's  big  as  a  pea,  and 
sparkles  beautiful,  and  's  got  the  '  Lord  is  thy  keeper  '  in 
Hebrew  on  the  inside.  I  want  to  see  Mrs.  Wouvermans 
and  ask  her  what  she  thinks  now.  Oh,  and  he  took  her 
to  ride  in  such  a  stylish  carriage,  white  lynx  lap-robe,  and 
all!  I  don't  care  if  he  does  burn  candles  in  his  chapel. 
What  does  that  prove  ?  It  don't  prove  anything.  I  like 
to  see  people  have  some  logic  about  things,  for  my  part, 
don't  you,  Dorcas?  Don't  you?" 

"Mercy!  yes,  Betsey,"  said  Miss  Dorcas,  delighted  to 
see  her  sister  so  excitedly  happy,  "though  I  don't  exactly 
see  my  way  clear  through  yours;  but  no  matter." 

"I'm  going  to  crochet  a  toilet  cushion  for  a  wedding 
present,  Dorcas,  like  that  one  in  the  red  room,  you  know. 
I  wonder  when  it  will  come  off?  How  lucky  I  have  that 
sweet  cap  that  Mrs.  Henderson  made.  Was  n't  it  good  of 
her  to  make  it?  I  hope  they'll  invite  us.  Don't  you 
think  they  will  ?  I  suppose  it  will  be  in  his  chapel,  with 
candles  and  all  sorts  of  new  ways.  Well,  I  don't  care,  so 
long  as  folks  are  good  people,  what  their  ways  are;  do 
you,  Dorcas?  I  must  run  up  and  count  the  stitches  on 
that  cushion  this  minute ! "  and  Mrs.  Betsey  upset  her 


356  WE   AND  OUR   NEIGHBORS 

basket  of  worsteds  in  her  zeal,  and  Jack  flew  round  and 
round,  barking  sympathetically.  In  fact,  he  was  so  ex 
cited  by  the  general  breeze  that  he  chewed  up  two  balls  of 
worsted  before  recovering  his  composure.  Such  was  the 
effect  of  the  news  at  the  old  Yanderheyden  house. 


CHAPTER   XLI 

LETTER    FROM    EVA    TO    HARRY'S    MOTHER 

MY  DEAR  MOTHER,  — I  sit  down  to  write  to  you  with 
a  heart  full  of  the  strangest  feelings  and  experiences.  I 
feel  as  if  I  had  been  out  in  some  other  world  and  been 
brought  back  again;  and  now  I  hardly  know  myself  or 
where  I  am.  You  know  I  wrote  you  all  about  Maggie, 
and  her  leaving  us,  and  poor  Mary's  trouble  about  her,  and 
how  she  had  been  since  seen  in  a  very  bad  neighborhood; 
I  promised  Mary  faithfully  that  I  would  go  after  her;  and 
so,  after  all  our  Christmas  labors  were  over,  Harry  and  I 
went  on  a  midnight  excursion  with  Mr.  James,  the  Metho 
dist  minister,  who  has  started  the  mission  there. 

It  seemed  to  me  very  strange  that  a  minister  could  have 
access  to  all  those  places  where  he  proposed  to  take  us, 
and  see  all  that  was  going  on  without  insult  or  danger,  but 
he  told  me  that  he  was  in  the  constant  habit  of  passing 
through  the  dance- houses,  and  talking  with  the  people  who 
kept  them,  and  that  he  had  never  met  with  any  rudeness 
or  incivility.  He  told  us  that  in  the  very  centre  of  this 
worst  district  of  New  York,  among  drinking  saloons  and 
dance-houses,  a  few  Christian  people  had  bought  a  house 
in  which  they  had  established  a  mission  family,  with  a 
room  which  they  use  for  a  chapel;  and  they  hold  weekly 
prayer-meetings,  and  seek  to  draw  in  the  wretched  people 
there.  On  this  evening,  he  said,  they  were  about  to  give 
a  midnight  supper  at  the  Home  to  any  poor  houseless  wan 
derer  whom  they  could  find  in  those  wretched  streets,  or 
who  hung  about  the  drinking  saloons. 


358  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

"Our  only  hope  in  this  mission,"  he  said,  "is  to  make 
these  wretched  people  feel  that  we  really  are  their  friends 
and  seek  their  good ;  and,  in  order  to  do  this,  we  must  do 
something  for  them  that  they  can  understand.  They  can 
all  understand  a  good  supper,  when  they  are  lying  about 
cold  and  hungry  and  homeless,  on  a  stinging  cold  night 
like  this;  and  we  don't  begin  to  talk  to  them  till  we  have 
warmed  and  fed  them.  It  surprises  them  to  have  us  take 
all  this  trouble  to  do  them  good;  it  awakens  their  curios 
ity  ;  they  wonder  what  we  do  it  for,  and  then,  when  we  tell 
them  it  is  because  we  are  Christians,  and  love  them,  and 
want  to  save  them,  they  believe  us.  After  that,  they  are 
willing  to  come  to  our  meetings,  and  attend  to  what  we  say." 

Now,  this  seemed  to  me  good  philosophy,  but  I  could 
not  help  saying,  "Dear  Mr.  James,  how  could  you  have 
the  courage  to  begin  a  mission  in  such  a  dreadful  piace; 
and  how  can  you  have  any  hope  of  saving  such  people  ? " 
And  he  answered,  "With  God,  all  things  are  possible. 
That  was  what  Christ  came  for  —  to  seek  and  save  the  lost. 
The  Good  Shepherd,"  he  said,  "leaves  the  ninety  and  nine 
safe  sheep  in  the  fold,  and  goes  after  one  that  is  lost  until 
he  finds  it."  I  asked  him  who  supported  the  Home,  and 
he  said  it  was  supported  by  God,  in  answer  to  prayer; 
that  they  made  no  public  solicitation;  had  nobody  pledged 
to  help  them;  but  that  contributions  were  constantly  com 
ing  in  from  one  Christian  person  or  another,  as  they 
needed  them;  that  the  superintendent  and  matron  of  the 
Home  had  no  stated  salary,  and  devoted  themselves  to  the 
work  in  the  same  faith  that  the  food  and  raiment  needed 
would  be  found  for  them;  and  so  far  it  had  not  failed. 

All  this  seemed  very  strange  to  me.  It  seemed  a  sort 
of  literal  rendering  of  some  of  the  things  in  the  Bible 
that  we  pass  over  as  having  no  very  definite  meaning. 
Mr.  James  seemed  so  quiet,  so  assured,  so  calm  and 
unexcited,  that  one  couldn't  help  believing  him. 


LETTER  FROM  EVA   TO   HARRY'S   MOTHER  359 

It  seemed  a  great  way  that  we  rode,  in  parts  of  the  city 
that  I  never  saw  before,  in  streets  whose  names  were  un 
known  to  me,  till  finally  we  alighted  before  a  plain  house 
in  a  street  full  of  drinking  saloons.  As  we  drove  up,  we 
heard  the  sound  of  hymn-singing,  and  looked  into  a  long 
room  set  with  benches  which  seemed  full  of  people.  We 
stopped  a  moment  to  listen  to  the  words  of  an  old  Metho 
dist  hymn :  — 

"  Come,  ye  weary,  heavy-laden, 
Lost  and  ruined  by  the  fall, 
If  you  tarry  till  you  're  better, 
You  will  never  come  at  all. 
Not  the  righteous  — 
Sinners,  Jesus  came  to  call. 

"  Come  ye  thirsty,  come  and  welcome, 

God's  free  bounty  glorify. 

True  belief  and  true  repentance, 

Every  grace  that  brings  us  nigh, 
Without  money, 
Come  to  Jesus  Christ  and  buy." 

It  was  the  last  hymn,  and  they  were  about  breaking  up 
as  we  went  into  the  house.  This  building,  Mr.  James 
told  us,  used  to  be  a  rat-pit,  where  the  lowest,  vilest,  and 
most  brutal  kinds  of  sport  were  going  on.  It  used  to  be, 
he  said,  foul  and  filthy,  physically  as  well  as  morally ;  but 
scrubbing  and  paint  and  whitewash  had  transformed  it  into 
a  comfortable  home.  There  was  a  neat  sitting-room,  car 
peted  and  comfortably  furnished,  a  dining-room,  a  pantry 
stocked  with  serviceable  china,  a  work-room  with  two  or 
three  sewing-machines,  and  a  kitchen,  from  which  at  this 
moment  came  a  most  appetizing  smell  of  the  soup  which 
was  preparing  for  the  midnight  supper.  Above,  were  dor^ 
mitories,  in  which  were  lodging  about  twenty  girls,  who 
had  fled  to  this  refuge  to  learn  a  new  life.  They  had 
known  the  depth  of  sin  and  the  bitterness  of  punishment, 
had  been  spurned,  disgraced,  and  outcast.  Some  of  them 
had  been  at  Blackwell's  Island  —  on  the  street  —  in  the 


360  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

very  gutter  —  and  now,  here  they  were,  as  I  saw  some  of 
them,  decently  and  modestly  dressed,  and  busy  preparing 
for  the  supper.  When  I  looked  at  them  setting  the  tables, 
or  busy  about  their  cooking,  they  seemed  so  cheerful  and 
respectable,  I  could  scarcely  believe  that  they  had  been 
so  degraded.  A  portion  of  them  only  were  detailed  for  the 
night  service;  the  others  had  come  up  from  the  chapel  and 
were  going  to  bed  in  the  dormitories,  and  we  heard  them 
singing  a  hymn  before  retiring.  It  was  very  affecting  to 
me  —  the  sound  of  that  hymn,  and  the  thought  of  so  peace 
ful  a  home  in  the  midst  of  this  dreadful  neighborhood. 
Mr.  James  introduced  us  to  the  man  and  his  wife  who  take 
charge  of  the  family.  They  are  converts  —  the  fruits  of 
these  labors.  He  was  once  a  singer,  and  connected  with 
a  drinking  saloon,  but  was  now  giving  his  whole  time  and 
strength  to  this  work,  in  which  he  had  all  the  more  success 
because  he  had  so  thorough  an  experience  and  knowledge 
of  the  people  to  be  reached.  We  were  invited  to  sit  down 
to  a  supper  in  the  dining-room,  for  Mr.  James  said  we 
should  be  out  so  late  before  returning  home  that  we  should 
need  something  to  sustain  us.  So  we  took  some  of  the 
soup  which  was  preparing  for  the  midnight  supper,  and 
very  nice  and  refreshing  we  found  it.  After  this,  we  went 
out  with  Mr.  James  and  the  superintendent,  to  go  through 
the  saloons  and  dance-houses  and  drinking  places,  and  to 
distribute  tickets  of  invitation  to  the  supper.  What  we 
saw  seems  now  to  me  like  a  dream.  I  had  heard  that  such 
things  were,  but  never  before  did  I  see  them.  We  went 
from  one  place  to  another,  and  always  the  same  features  — 
a  dancing-room,  with  girls  and  women  dressed  and  orna 
mented,  sitting  round  waiting  for  partners;  men  of  all 
sorts  walking  in  and  surveying  and  choosing  from  among 
them  and  dancing,  and,  afterwards  or  before,  going  with 
them  to  the  bar  to  drink.  Many  of  these  girls  looked 
young  and  comparatively  fresh ;  their  dresses  were  cut  very 


LETTER  FROM  EVA   TO   HARRY'S   MOTHER          361 

low,  so  that  I  blushed  for  them  through  my  veil.  I  clung 
tight  to  Harry's  arm,  and  asked  myself  where  I  was,  as  I 
moved  round  among  them.  Nobody  noticed  us.  Every 
body  seemed  to  have  a  right  to  be  there,  and  see  what  they 
could. 

I  remember  one  large  building  of  two  or  three  stories, 
with  larger  halls  below,  all  lighted  up,  with  dancing  and 
drinking  going  on,  and  throngs  and  throngs  of  men,  old 
and  young,  pouring  and  crowding  through  it.  These  taw 
drily  bedizened,  wretched  girls  and  women  seemed  to  me 
such  a  sorrow  and  disgrace  to  womanhood  and  to  Christian 
ity  that  my  very  heart  sunk,  as  I  walked  among  them.  I 
felt  as  if  I  could  have  cried  for  their  disgrace.  Yet  nobody 
said  a  word  to  us.  All  the  keepers  of  the  places  seemed 
to  know  Mr.  James  and  the  superintendent.  He  spoke  to 
them  all  kindly  and  politely,  and  they  answered  with  the 
same  civility.  In  one  or  two  of  the  saloons  the  superin 
tendent  asked  leave  to  sing  a  song,  which  was  granted,  and 
he  sung  the  hymn  that  begins :  — 

"  I  love  to  tell  the  story 

Of  unseen  things  above, 
Of  Jesus  and  his  glory, 

Of  Jesus  and  his  love  ; 
I  love  to  tell  the  story  — 

It  did  so  much  for  me  — 
And  that  is  just  the  reason 

I  tell  it  unto  thee." 

At  another  place,  he  sung  "Home,  Sweet  Home,"  and  I 
thought  I  saw  many  faces  that  looked  sad.  Either  our 
presence  was  an  embarrassment,  or  for  some  other  reason  it 
seemed  to  me  there  was  no  real  gayety,  and  that  the 
dancing  and  the  keeping  up  of  a  show  of  hilarity  were  all 
heavy  work. 

There  seems,  however,  to  be  a  gradation  in  these  dread 
ful  places.  Besides  these  which  were  furnished  with  some 
show  and  pretension,  there  were  cellars  where  the  same 
sort  of  thing  was  going  on  —  dancing  and  drinking,  and 


362  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

women  set  to  be  the  tempters  of  men.  We  saw  miserable 
creatures  standing  out  on  the  sidewalk,  to  urge  the  passers- 
by  to  come  into  these  cellars.  It  was  pitiful,  heart-break 
ing  to  see.  But  the  lowest,  the  most  dreadful  of  all,  was 
what  they  called  the  bucket  shops.  There  the  vilest  of 
liquors  are  mixed  in  buckets  and  sold  to  wretched,  crazed 
people  who  have  fallen  so  low  that  they  cannot  get  any 
thing  better.  It  is  the  lowest  depth  of  the  dreadful  deep. 

Oh,  those  bucket  shops !  Never  shall  I  forget  the  poor, 
forlorn,  forsaken-looking  creatures,  both  men  and  women, 
that  I  saw  there.  They  seemed  crouching  in  from  the 
cold  —  hanging  about,  or  wandering  uncertainly  up  and 
down.  Mr.  James  spoke  to  many  of  them,  as  if  he  knew 
them,  kindly  and  sorrowfully.  "This  is  a  hard  way  you 
are  going,"  he  said  to  one.  "Are  n't  you  most  tired  of  it  ?  " 
"Well,"  he  said  to  another  poor  creature,  "when  you  have 
gone  as  far  as  you  can,  and  come  to  the  end,  and  nobody 
will  have  you,  and  nobody  do  anything  for  you,  then  come 
to  us,  and  we  '11  take  you  in." 

During  all  this  time,  and  in  all  these  places,  the  super 
intendent,  who  seemed  to  have  a  personal  knowledge  of 
many  of  those  among  whom  he  was  moving,  was  busy  dis 
tributing  his  tickets  of  invitation  to  the  supper.  He  knew 
where  the  utterly  lost  and  abandoned  ones  were  most  to 
be  found,  and  to  them  he  gave  most  regard. 

But  as  yet,  though  I  looked  with  anxious  eyes,  I  had 
seen  nothing  of  Maggie.  I  spoke  to  Mr.  James  at  last, 
and  he  said,  "We  have  not  yet  visited  Mother  Moggs's 
establishment,  where  she  was  said  to  be.  We  are  going 
there  now." 

"Mother  Moggs  is  a  character  in  her  way,"  he  told  us. 
"  She  has  always  treated  me  with  perfect  respect  and  polite 
ness,  because  I  have  shown  the  same  to  her.  She  seems 
at  first  view  like  any  other  decent  woman,  but  she  is  one 
that,  if  she  were  roused,  would  be  as  prompt  with  knife 


LETTER   FEOM   EVA   TO   HARRY'S   MOTHER  363 

and  pistol  as  any  man  in  these  streets."  As  he  said  this, 
we  turned  a  corner,  and  entered  a  dancing  saloon,  in  its 
features  much  like  many  others  we  had  seen.  Mother 
Moggs  stood  at  a  sort  of  bar  at  the  upper  end,  where 
liquors  were  displayed  and  sold.  She  seemed  really  so 
respectably  dressed,  and  so  quiet  and  pleasant-looking,  that 
I  could  scarcely  believe  my  eyes  when  I  saw  her. 

Mr.  James  walked  up  with  us  to  where  she  was  stand 
ing,  and  spoke  to  her,  as  he  does  to  every  one,  gently  and 
respectfully,  inquiring  after  her  health,  and  then,  in  a 
lower  tone,  he  said,  "And  how  about  the  health  of  your 
soul  1 " 

She  colored,  and  forced  a  laugh,  and  answered  with 
some  smartness,  "Which  soul  do  you  mean1?  I've  got 
two  —  one  on  each  foot. " 

He  took  no  notice  of  the  jest,  but  went  on:  — 

"  And  how  about  the  souls  of  these  girls  1  What  will 
become  of  them  ?  " 

"I  ain't  hurting  their  souls,"  she  said.  "I  don't  force 
'em  to  stay  with  me ;  they  come  of  their  own  accord,  and 
they  can  go  when  they  please.  I  don't  keep  'em.  If  any 
of  my  girls  can  better  themselves  anywhere  else,  I  don't 
stand  in  their  way." 

The  air  of  virtuous  assurance  with  which  she  spoke 
would  have  given  the  impression  that  she  was  pursuing, 
under  difficult  circumstances,  some  praiseworthy  branch  of 
industry  at  which  her  girls  were  apprentices. 

Just  at  this  moment,  I  turned,  and  saw  Maggie  standing 
behind  me.  She  was  not  with  the  other  girls,  but  stand 
ing  a  little  back,  toward  the  bar.  Instantly  I  crossed 
over,  and,  raising  my  veil,  said,  "Maggie,  poor  child! 
come  back  to  your  mother." 

Her  face  changed  in  a  moment;  she  looked  pale,  as  if 
she  were  going  to  faint,  and  said  only,  "Oh!  Mrs.  Hen 
derson,  you  here ? " 


364  WE   AND  OUR  NEIGHBORS 

"Yes,  I  came  to  look  for  you,  Maggie.  Come  right 
away  with  us,"  I  said.  "Oh,  Maggie!  come,"  and  I  burst 
into  tears. 

She  seemed  dreadfully  agitated,  but  said :  — 

"Oh,  I  can't;  it's  too  late!" 

"No,  it  isn't.  Mr.  James,"  I  said,  "here  she  is.  Her 
mother  has  sent  for  her." 

"And  you,  madam,"  said  Mr.  James  to  the  woman, 
"have  just  said  you  wouldn't  stand  in  the  way,  if  any  of 
your  girls  could  better  themselves." 

The  woman  was  fairly  caught  in  her  own  trap.  She 
cast  an  evil  look  at  us  all,  but  said  nothing,  as  we  turned 
to  leave,  I  holding  upon  Maggie,  determined  not  to  let 
her  go. 

We  took  her  with  us  to  the  Home.  She  was  crying  as 
if  her  heart  would  break.  The  girls  who  were  getting  the 
supper  looked  at  her  with  sympathy  and  gathered  round 
her.  One  of  them  interested  me  deeply.  She  was  very 
pale  and  thin,  but  had  such  a  sweet  expression  of  peace 
and  humility  in  her  face!  She  came  and  sat  down  by 
Maggie  and  said,  "Don't  be  afraid;  this  is  Christ's  home, 
and  he  will  save  you  as  he  has  me.  I  was  worse  than  you 
are  —  worse  than  you  ever  could  be  —  arid  He  has  saved 
me.  I  am  so  happy  here !  " 

And  now  the  miserable  wretches  who  had  been  invited 
to  the  supper  came  pouring  in.  Oh,  such  a  sight !  Such 
forlorn  wrecks  of  men,  in  tattered  and  torn  garments,  with 
such  haggard  faces,  such  weary,  despairing  eyes!  They 
looked  dazed  at  the  light  and  order  and  quiet  they  saw  as 
they  came  in.  Mr.  James  and  the  superintendent  stood 
at  the  door,  saying,  "Come  in,  boys,  come  in;  you're 
welcome  heartily !  Here  you  are,  glad  to  see  you, "  seating 
them  on  benches  at  the  lower  part  of  the  room. 

While  the  supper  was  being  brought  in,  the  table  was 
set  with  an  array  of  bowls  of  smoking  hot  soup  and  a  large 


LETTER  FROM  EVA  TO   HARRY'S   MOTHER          365 

piece  of  nice  white  bread  at  each  plate.  When  all  had 
been  arranged,  Mr.  James  saw  to  seating  the  whole  band 
at  the  tables,  asked  a  blessing,  standing  at  the  head,  and 
then  said  cheerily,  "Now,  boys,  fall  to;  eat  all  you  want; 
there  is  plenty  more  where  this  came  from,  and  you  shall 
have  as  much  as  you  can  carry." 

The  night  was  cold,  and  the  soup  was  savory  and  hot, 
and  the  bread  white  and  fine,  and  many  of  them  ate  with 
a  famished  appetite;  the  girls  meanwhile  stood  watchful 
to  replenish  the  bowls  or  hand  more  bread.  All  seemed 
to  be  done  with  such  a  spirit  of  bountiful,  cheerful  good 
will  as  was  quite  inspiriting.  It  was  not  till  hunger  was 
fully  satisfied  that  Mr.  James  began  to  talk  to  them,  and 
when  he  did,  I  wondered  at  his  tact. 

"This  is  quite  the  thing,  now,  isn't  it,  boys,  of  a  cold 
night  like  this,  when  a  fellow  is  hungry  ?  See  what  it  is 
to  have  friends. 

"I  suppose,  boys,  you  get  better  suppers  than  these 
from  those  fellows  that  you  buy  your  drink  of.  They 
make  suppers  for  you  sometimes,  I  suppose  ?  " 

"No,  indeed,"  growled  some  of  the  men.  "Catch  'em 
doing  it ! " 

"Why,  I  should  think  they  ought  to,  when  you  spend 
all  your  money  on  them.  You  pay  all  your  money  to 
them,  and  make  yourselves  so  poor  that  you  haven't  a 
crust,  and  then  they  won't  even  get  you  a  supper? " 

"No,  that  they  won't,"  growled  some.  "They  don't 
eare  if  we  starve." 

"Boys,"  said  Mr.  James,  "aren't  you  fools?  Here 
these  men  get  rich  and  you  get  poor.  You  pay  all  your 
earnings  to  them.  You  can't  have  anything,  and  they 
have  everything.  They  can  have  plate-glass  windows,  and 
they  can  keep  their  carriages,  and  their  wives  have  their 
silk  dresses  and  jewels,  and  you  pay  for  it  all;  and  then, 
when  you  've  spent  your  last  cent  over  their  counters,  they 


366  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

kick  you  into  the  street.  Are  n't  you  fools  to  be  support 
ing  such  men?  Your  wives  don't  get  any  silk  dresses,  I  '11 
bet.  Oh,  boys,  where  are  your  wives,  where  are  your 
mothers,  where  are  your  children  1  " 

By  this  time  they  were  looking  pretty  sober,  and  some 
of  them  had  tears  in  their  eyes. 

"Oh,  boys,  boys!  this  is  a  bad  way  you've  been  in  — 
a  bad  way.  Haven't  you  gone  long  enough?  Don't  you 
want  to  give  it  up?  Look  here  —  now,  boys,  I'll  read 
you  a  story.'7  And  then  he  read  from  his  pocket  Testa 
ment  the  parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son.  He  read  it  beauti 
fully:  I  thought  I  had  never  understood  it  before.  When 
he  had  done,  he  said,  "And  now,  boys,  hadn't  you  better 
come  back  to  your  Father?  Do  you  remember,  some  of 
you,  how  your  mother  used  to  teach  you  to  say,  '  Our 
Father,  who  art  in  heaven '  ?  Come  now,  kneel  down, 
every  one  of  you,  and  let 's  try  it  once  more." 

They  all  knelt,  and  I  never  heard  anything  like  that 
prayer.  It  was  so  loving,  so  earnest,  so  pitiful.  He 
prayed  for  those  poor  men,  as  if  he  were  praying  for  his 
own  soul.  They  must  have  felt  how  he  loved  them.  It 
almost  broke  my  heart  to  hear  him;  it  did  seem  for  the 
time  as  if  the  wall  were  down  that  separates  God's  love 
from  us,  and  that  everybody  must  feel  it,  even  these  poor 
wretched  creatures. 

There  were  among  them  some  young  men,  and  some 
whose  heads  and  features  were  good,  and  indicative  of  -  for 
mer  refinement  of  feeling.  I  could  not  help  thinking  how 
many  histories  of  sorrow,  for  just  so  many  families,  were 
written  in  those  faces. 

"Is  it  possible  that  you  can  save  any  of  these?  "  I  said 
to  Mr.  James,  as  they  were  going  out. 

"We  cannot,  but  God  can,"  he  said.  "With  God,  all 
things  are  possible.  We  have  seen  a  great  many  saved 
that  were  as  low  as  these;  but  it  was  only  by  the  power 


LETTER  FROM  EVA   TO   HARRY'S   MOTHER          367 

of  God  converting  their  souls.  That  is  at  all  times  possi 
ble." 

"But,"  said  Harry,  "the  craving  for  drink  gets  to  be 
a  physical  disease." 

"Yet  I  have  seen  that  craving  all  subdued  and  taken 
away  by  the  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  They  become  new 
creatures  in  Christ." 

"That  would  be  almost  miraculous,"  said  Harry. 

"We  must  expect  miracles,  and  we  shall  have  them," 
replied  he. 

Meanwhile,  the  girls  had  gathered  around  Maggie,  and 
were  talking  with  her,  and  when  we  spoke  of  going,  she 
said :  — 

"Dear  Mrs.  Henderson,  let  me  stay  here  awhile;  the 
girls  here  will  help  me,  and  I  can  do  some  good  here,  and 
by  and  by,  perhaps,  when  I  am  stronger,  I  can  come  back 
to  mother.  It 's  better  for  me  here  now." 

Mr.  James  and  the  matron  both  agreed  that,  for  the 
present,  this  would  be  best.  There  is  a  current  of  sympa 
thy,  an  energy  of  Christian  feeling,  a  sort  of  enthusiasm, 
about  this  house,  that  helps  one  to  begin  anew. 

It  was  nearly  morning  before  we  found  ourselves  in  our 
home  again  —  but,  for  me,  the  night  has  not  been  spent 
in  vain.  Oh,  mother,  can  it  be  that  in  a  city  full  of 
churches  and  Christians  such  dreadful  things  as  I  saw  are 
going  on  every  night?  Certainly,  if  all  Christians  felt 
about  it  as  those  do  wrho  have  begun  this  Home,  there 
would  be  a  change.  If  every  Christian  would  do  a  little, 
a  great  deal  would  be  done ;  for  there  are  many  Christians. 
But  now  it  seems  as  if  a  few  were  left  to  do  all,  while  the 
many  do  nothing.  But  Harry  and  I  are  resolved  hence 
forth  to  do  our  part  in  helping  this  work. 

Mary  is  comforted  about  Maggie  and  unboundedly  grate 
ful  to  me  for  going.  I  think  she  herself  prefers  her  stay- 


368  WE  AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

ing  there  awhile;  she  has  felt  so  keenly  what  Aunt  Maria 
said  about  her  being  a  burden  and  disgrace  to  us. 

We  shall  watch  over  her  there,  and  help  her  forward  in 
life  as  fast  as  she  is  strong  enough  to  go.  But  I  am  mak 
ing  this  letter  too  long,  so  good-by  for  the  present. 

Your  loving  EVA. 


CHAPTER  XLII 


"WELL,  hurrah  for  Jim!"  exclaimed  our  friend  Jim 
Fellows,  making  tumultuous  entrance  into  the  Henderson 
house,  with  such  a  whirl  and  breeze  of  motion  as  to  flutter 
the  music  on  the  piano,  and  the  papers  on  Harry's  writing- 
desk,  while  he  skipped  round  the  room,  executing  an 
extemporary  pas  seul. 

"Jim,  for  goodness'  sake,  what  now?"  said  Harry,  ris 
ing.  "What's  up?" 

"I've  got  it!  I've  got  it!  —  the  first  place  on  the 
*  Forum '!  Think  of  the  luck!  I've  been  talking  with 
Ivison  and  Sears  about  it,  and  the  papers  are  all  drawn. 
I  'm  made  now,  you  'd  better  believe.  It 's  firm  land  at 
last,  and  I  tell  you,  if  I  haven't  scratched  for  it!  " 

"Wish  you  joy,  my  boy,  with  all  my  heart,"  said 
Harry,  shaking  his  hand.  "It 's  the  top  of  the  ladder." 

"And  I,  too,  Jim,"  said  Eva,  offering  her  hand  frankly. 
"Sit  down  and  have  a  cup  of  tea  with  us." 

"You  don't  care,  I  suppose,  what  happens  to  me,"  said 
Jim  in  an  abused  tone,  turning  to  Alice,  who  had  sat 
quietly  in  a  shaded  corner  through  this  outburst. 

"Bless  me,  Jim,  I've  been  holding  my  breath,  for  I 
didn't  know  what  you  'd  do  next.  I  'm  sure  I  wish  you 
joy  with  all  my  heart.  There  's  my  hand  on  it,"  and  Alice 
reached  out  her  hand  as  frankly  as  Eva. 

It  was  a  hand  as  fair,  soft,  and  white  as  a  man  might 
wish  to  have  settle  like  a  dove  of  peace  and  rest  in 
his  own;  and,  as  it  went  into  his  palm,  Jim  could  not 


370  WE  AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

help  giving  it  a  warm,  detaining  grasp  that  had  a  certain 
significance,  especially  as  his  eyes  rested  upon  her  with  a 
flash  of  expression  before  which  hers  fell. 

Alice  had  come  to  Eva's  to  dine,  and  they  were  now 
just  enjoying  that  pleasant  after-dinner  hour  around  the 
fireside,  when  they  sat  and  played  with  their  tea  in  pretty 
teacups,  and  chatted,  and  looked  into  the  fire.  It  is  the 
hour  dear  to  memory,  when  the  home  fireside  seems  like 
a  picture,  when  the  gleams  of  light  that  fall  on  one's 
plants  and  pictures  and  books  and  statuettes  bring  forth 
some  new  charm  in  each  one,  giving  rise  to  the  exulting 
feeling,  "Nowhere  in  the  world  is  there  a  place  so  pretty 
and  so  cosy  as  this." 

Now,  Alice  had  been  meditating  a  return  to  her  own 
home  that  night,  trusting  to  Harry  for  escort;  but,  at  the 
moment  that  Jim  took  her  hand  and  she  saw  the  expression 
of  his  eyes,  she  mentally  altered  her  intentions  and  resolved 
to  remain  all  night.  She  was  sure  if  she  rose  to  go  Jim 
would,  of  course,  be  her  escort.  She  was  riot  going  to  walk 
home  alone  with  him  in  his  present  mood,  and  trust  herself 
to  hear,  and  be  obliged  to  answer,  anything  he  might  be 
led  to  say. 

The  fact  is  well  known  to  observers  of  mental  phe 
nomena,  that  an  engagement  suddenly  sprung  upon  a 
circle  of  intimate  acquaintances  is  often  productive  of  great 
searchings  of  heart,  and  that  it  is  apt  to  have  a  result  simi 
lar  to  the  knocking  down  of  one  brick  at  the  extreme  of  a 
line  of  them.  Alice  had  been  startled  and  astonished  by 
finding  her  rector  descending  from  the  semi-angelic  sphere 
where  she  had,  in  her  imagination,  placed  him,  and  com 
ing  into  the  ranks  of  mortal  and  marrying  men.  She  had 
seen  and  handled  the  engagement  ring  which  sparkled  on 
Angie's  finger,  and  it  looked  like  any  other  ring  that  a 
gentleman  of  good  taste  might  buy,  and  she  had  heard  all 
the  comments  of  the  knowing  ones  thereon.  Already 


JIM'S   FORTUNES  371 

there  was  activity  in  the  direction  of  a  prospective  trous 
seau.  Aunt  Maria,  with  her  usual  alertness,  was  prizing 
stuffs  and  giving  records  of  prices  and  of  cheap  and  desir- 
ahle  shopping  places,  and  racing  from  one  end  of  the  city 
to  the  other  in  self-imposed  pilgrimages  of  research.  There 
were  discussions  of  houses  for  the  future  rectory.  Every 
thing  was  in  a  whirl  of  preparation.  There  was  marriage 
in  the  very  air:  and  the  same  style  of  reflection  which 
occurs  when  there  is  a  death  is  apposite  also  to  the  be 
trothal —  "Whose  turn  shall  come  next?"  Hodie  mihi 

—  eras  tibi.      Jim    Fellows,    the    most    excitable,    sympa 
thetic  of  all  mortal  Jims,  may  well  be  supposed  to  have 
felt  something  of  the  general  impulse. 

Now,  Miss  Alice  was  as  fine  a  specimen  of  young  lady 
hood  at  twenty-two  as  is  ordinarily  to  be  met  with  in  New 
York  or  otherwhere.  She  was  well  read,  well  bred,  high 
minded,  and  high  principled.  She  was  a  little  inclined  to 
the  ultra-romantic  in  her  views,  and  while  living  along 
contentedly,  and  with  a  moderate  degree  of  good  sense  and 
comfort,  with  such  people  as  were  to  be  found  on  earth, 
was  a  little  prone  to  indulge  dreams  of  supercelestial  peo 
ple  —  imaginary  heroes  and  heroines.  In  the  way  of 
friendship,  she  imagined  she  liked  many  of  her  gentlemen 
associates;  but  the  man  she  was  to  marry  was  to  be  a  hero 

—  somebody  before  whom  she  and  every  one  else  should 
be  irresistibly  constrained  to  bow  down  and  worship.      She 
knew  nobody  of  this  species  as  yet. 

Harry  was  all  very  well ;  a  nice  fellow  —  a  bright, 
lively,  wide-awake  fellow  —  a  faultless  husband  —  a  desir 
able  brother-in-law;  but  still  Harry  was  not  a  hero.  He 
was  a  man  subject  to  domestic  discipline  for  at  times  litter 
ing  the  parlor  table  with  too  many  pamphlets,  for  giving 
imprudent  invitations  to  dinner  on  an  ill-considered  bill  of 
fare,  and  for  confounding  solferino  with  pink  when  describ 
ing  colors  or  matching  worsteds.  All  these  things  brought 


372  WE  AND  OUR   NEIGHBORS 

him  down  into  the  sphere  of  the  actual,  and  took  off  the 
halo.  In  review  of  all  the  married  men  of  her  acquaint 
ance,  she  was  constrained  to  acknowledge  that  the  genus 
hero  was  rare.  Nobody  that  she  was  acquainted  with  ever 
had  married  this  kind  of  being;  and,  in  fact,  within  her 
own  mind  his  lineaments  were  cloudy  and  indistinct,  like 
the  magic  looking-glass  of  Agrippa  before  the  destined 
image  shone  out.  She  only  knew  of  this  or  that  mortal 
man  of  her  acquaintance,  that  he  was  not  in  the  least  like 
this  ideal  of  her  dreams. 

Meanwhile,  Miss  Alice  was  not  at  all  insensible  to  the 
charm  of  having  a  friend  of  the  other  sex  wholly  and  en 
tirely  devoted  to  her.  She  thought  she  had  with  most 
exemplary  frankness  and  directness  indicated  to  Jim  that 
they  were  to  be  friends  and  only  friends;  she  had  con 
tended  for  her  right  to  be  just  as  intimate  with  him  as  he 
and  she  pleased,  in  the  face  of  Aunt  Maria  and  of  all  the 
ranks  and  orders  of  good  gossips  who  make  the  regulation 
of  other  people's  affairs  a  specialty;  and  she  flattered  her 
self  that  she  had  at  last  conquered  this  territory  and  se 
cured  for  herself  this  independent  right.  People  had 
almost  done  telling  her  they  had  heard  that  she  was  en 
gaged  to  Jim  Fellows,  and  asking  her  when  it  was  going 
to  be  announced.  She  plumed  herself,  in  a  quiet  way,  on 
the  independence  and  spirit  she  had  shown  in  the  matter. 

Now,  Jim  was  one  of  those  fellows  who,  in  certain 
respects,  remain  a  boy  forever.  The  boy  in  him  was  cer 
tainly  booked  for  as  long  a  mortal  journey  as  the  man; 
and,  at  threescore  years  and  ten,  one  ought  not  to  expect 
to  meet  in  him  ether  than  a  white-headed,  vivacious  old 
boy.  He  was  a  driving,  industrious,  efficient  creature. 
He  was,  in  all  respects,  ideally  fitted  to  success  in  the  pro 
fession  he  had  chosen;  the  very  image  and  body  of  the 
New  York  press  man  —  lively,  versatile,  acute,  unsleeping, 
untiring,  always  wide  awake,  up  and  dressed,  and  in  full 


JIM'S  FOETUNES  373 

command  of  his  faculties,  at  any  hour  of  day  or  night, 
ready  for  any  emergency,  overflowing  with  inconsiderate 
fun  and  frolic,  and,  like  the  public  he  served,  going  for 
his  joke  at  any  price.  Since  his  intimacy  with  Alice  she 
had  assumed  to  herself  the  right  of  looking  over  his  ways 
and  acting  the  part  of  an  exterior  conscience;  and  Jim  had 
formed  the  habit  of  bringing  to  her  his  articles  for  criti 
cism.  And  Alice  flattered  herself  that  she  was  not  alto 
gether  selfish  in  accepting  his  devotion,  but  was  saving  him 
from  many  an  unwise  escapade,  and  inciting  him  to  higher 
standards  and  nobler  ways  of  looking  at  life. 

Of  all  the  Christian  and  becoming  roles  in  the  great 
drama  of  life,  there  is  none  that  so  exactly  suits  young 
ladies  of  a  certain  degree  of  gravity  and  dignity  as  that  of 
guardian  angel.  Now,  in  respect  to  Jim,  Alice  certainly 
was  fitted  to  sustain  this  role.  She  was  well  poised, 
decided,  sensible  and  serious  in  her  conceptions  of  life, 
truthful  and  conscientious;  and  the  dash  of  ideality  which 
pervaded  all  her  views  gave  to  her,  in  the  eyes  of  the 
modern  New  York  boy,  a  sort  of  sacred  prestige,  like  the 
halo  around  a  saint. 

No  one  sees  life  on  a  harder,  colder,  more  utterly  un 
scrupulous  side  than  the  eleue  of  the  New  York  press. 
He  grinds  in  a  mill  of  competition.  He  serves  sharp  and 
severe  masters,  who  in  turn  are  driven  up  by  an  exacting, 
irresponsible  public,  panting  for  excitement,  grasping  for 
the  latest  sensation.  The  man  of  the  press  sees  behind 
the  scenes  in  every  illusion  of  life;  the  shapeless  pulleys, 
the  dripping  tallow  candles  that  light  up  the  show,  all  are 
familiar  to  him. 

To  him  come  all  the  tribes  who  have  axes  to  grind,  and 
want  him  to  turn  their  grindstones.  Avarice,  ambition, 
petty  vanity,  private  piques,  mean  intrigues,  sly  revenges, 
all  unbosom  themselves  to  him  as  to  a  father  confessor,  and 
invoke  his  powerful  aid.  To  him  it  is  given  to  see  the 


374  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

back  door  and  back  stairs  of  much  that  the  world  venerates, 
and  he  finds  there  filthy  sweepings  and  foul  debris.  Even 
the  church  of  every  name  and  sect  has  its  back  door,  its 
unsightly  sweepings.  He  who  is  in  so  many  secrets,  who 
explores  so  many  cabals,  who  sees  the  wrong  side  of  so 
many  a  fair  piece  of  goods,  with  all  its  knots,  and  jags, 
and  thrums,  what  wonder  if  he  come  to  that  worse  form  of 
skepticism  —  the  doubt  of  all  truth,  of  all  virtue,  of  all 
honor  ?  When  he  sees  how  reputations  can  be  made  and 
unmade  in  the  secret  conclaves  of  printing  offices,  how 
generous  and  holy  enthusiasms  are  assumed  as  a  cloak  for 
low  and  selfish  designs,  how  the  language  which  stirs 
man's  deepest  nature  lies  around  loose  in  the  hands  of 
skilled  word-experts,  to  be  used  in  getting  up  cabals  and 
carrying  party  intrigues,  it  is  scarcely  to  be  wondered  at  if 
he  come  to  regard  life  as  a  mere  game  of  skill,  where  the 
shrewdest  player  wins.  It  is  exactly  here  that  a  true, 
good  woman  is  the  moral  salvation  of  man.  Such  a  woman 
seems  to  a  man  more  than  she  can  ever  seem  to  her  female 
acquaintances.  She  is  to  him  the  proof  of  a  better  world, 
of  a  truer  life,  of  the  reality  of  justice,  purity,  honor,  and 
unselfishness.  He  regards  her,  to  be  sure,  as  unpractical, 
and  ignorant  of  the  world's  ways,  but  with  a  holy  igno 
rance  which  belongs  to  a  higher  region. 

Jim  had  dived  into  New  York  life  at  first  with  the  mere 
animal  recklessness  with  which  an  expert  swimmer  shows 
his  skill  in  difficult  navigation.  Life  was  an  adventure, 
a  game,  a  game  at  which  he  was  determined  nobody  should 
cheat  him,  a  race  in  which  he  was  determined  to  come  out 
ahead.  Nobody  should  catch  him  napping;  nobody  should 
outwit  him;  he  would  be  nobody's  fool.  His  acquaintance 
with  a  certain  class  of  girls  was  only  a  continuation  of  the 
bright,  quick,  adroit  game  of  fencing  which  he  played  in 
the  world.  If  a  girl  would  flirt,  so  would  Jim.  He  was 
au  GOUT  ant  of  all  the  positions  and  strategy  of  that  sort  of 


JIM'S   FORTUNES  375 

encounter;  he  had  all  the  persiflage  of  flattery  and  compli 
ment  at  his  tongue's  end,  and  enjoyed  the  rustle  and  flut 
ter  of  ribbons,  the  tapping  of  fans,  and  the  bustle  and 
mystery  of  small  secrets,  the  little  "ohs"  and  "ahs,"  and 
feminine  commotions  that  he  could  stir  up  in  almost  any 
bevy  of  nymphs  in  evening  dresses.  Speaking  of  female 
influence,  there  are  some  exceptions  to  be  taken  to  the 
general  theory  that  woman  has  an  elevating  power  over 
man.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  there  goes  any  of  this 
divine  impulse  from  giggling,  flirting  girls,  whose  highest 
aim  is  to  secure  the  admiration  and  attention  of  men,  and 
who,  to  get  it,  will  flatter  and  fawn,  profess  to  adore  to 
bacco  smoke,  and  even  to  have  a  warm  side  towards  whis 
key  punch,  —  girls  whose  power  over  men  is  based  on  an 
indiscriminate  deference  to  what  men  themselves  feel  to  be 
their  lower  and  less  worthy  nature. 

The  woman  who  really  wins  for  herself  a  worthy  influ 
ence  with  a  man  is  she  who  recognizes  in  him  the  divine 
under  all  worldly  disguises,  and  invariably  and  strongly 
takes  part  with  his  higher  against  his  lower  nature.  This 
was  the  secret  of  Alice's  power  over  Jim;  and  this  was 
why  she  had  become,  in  the  secret  and  inner  world  of  his 
life,  almost  a  religious  image.  All  his  dawning  aspirations 
to  be  somewhat  better  than  a  mere  chaser  of  expedients,  to 
be  a  man  of  lofty  objects  and  noble  purposes,  had  come 
from  her  acquaintance  with  him  —  an  acquaintance  begun 
on  both  sides  in  the  spirit  of  mere  flirtation,  and  passing 
from  that  to  esteem  and  friendship.  But,  in  the  case  of 
a  marriageable  young  man  of  twenty-five,  friendship  is  like 
some  of  those  rare  cacti  of  the  greenhouses  which,  in  an 
unexpected  hour,  burst  out  into  blossoms  of  untold  splen 
dor.  An  engagement  just  declared  in  their  circle  had 
breathed  a. warmer  atmosphere  of  suggestion  around  them, 
and  upon  that  had  come  a  position  in  his  profession  which 
offered  him  both  consideration  and  money ;  and  when  Jim 
was  assured  of  this,  his  first  thought  was  of  Alice. 


376  WE  AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

"Friendship  is  a  humbug,"  was  that  young  gentleman's 
mental  decision.  "It  may  do  all  very  well  with  some 
kinds  of  girls,"  —  and  Jim  mentally  reviewed  some  of  his 
lady  acquaintances,  —  "  but  with  Alice  Van  Arsdel,  it  is  all 
humbug  for  me  to  go  on  talking  friendship.  I  can't,  and 
sha'n't,  and  WON'T."  And  in  this  mood  it  was  that  he 
gave  to  Alice's  hand  that  startling  kind  of  pressure,  and 
something  of  this  flashed  from  his  eyes  into  hers.  It  was 
that  something,  like  the  gleam  of  a  steel  blade,  determined, 
resolute,  assured,  that  disconcerted  and  alarmed  her.  It 
was  like  the  sounding  of  a  horn,  summoning  a  parley  at 
the  postern  gate  of  a  fortress,  and  the  lady  chatelaine  not 
ready  either  to  surrender  or  to  defend.  So,  in  a  moment, 
Alice  resolved  not  to  walk  the  four  or  five  squares  between 
her  present  position  and  home  tete-a-tete  with  Jim  Fel 
lows;  and  she  sat  very  composed  and  very  still  in  her  cor 
ner,  and  put  in  demand  all  those  quiet,  repressive  tactics 
by  which  dignified  young  ladies  keep  back  issues  they  are 
not  precisely  ready  to  meet. 

The  general  subject  under  discussion  when  Jim  came  in 
was  a  party  to  be  given  at  Aunt  Maria's  the  next  evening 
in  honor  of  the  Stephensons,  when  Angie  and  Mr.  St.  John 
would  make  their  first  appearance  together  as  a  betrothed 
couple. 

"Now,  Jim,"  said  Eva,  "how  lucky  that  you  came  in, 
for  I  was  just  going  to  send  a  note  to  you!  Here  's  Harry 
has  got  to  give  a  lecture  to-morrow  night  and  can't  come 
in  till  towards  the  end  of  the  evening.  Alice  is  coming  to 
dine  and  dress  down  here  with  me,  and  I  want  you  to  dine 
with  us  and  be  our  escort  to  the  party  —  that  is,  if  you 
will  put  up  with  our  dressing  time  and  not  get  into  such 
a  state  of  perfect  amazement  as  Harry  always  does  when 
we  are  not  ready  at  the  moment." 

"If  you  ever  get  a  wife,  Jim,  you  '11  be  made  perfect  in 
this  science  of  waiting,"  said  Harry.  "The  only  way  to 


JIM'S   FORTUNES  377 

have  a  woman  ready  in  season  for  a  party  is  to  shut  her  up 
just  after  breakfast  and  keep  her  at  it  straight  along  through 
the  day.  Then  you  may  have  her  before  ten  o'clock." 

"You  see,"  said  Eva,  "Harry's  only  idea,  when  he  is 
going  to  a  party,  is  to  get  home  again  early.  We  almost 
never  go,  and  then  he  is  in  such  a  hurry  to  get  there,  so 
as  to  have  it  over  with  and  be  at  home  again." 

"Well,  I  confess,  for  my  part,  I  hate  parties,"  said 
Harry.  "They  always  get  a-going  just  about  my  usual 
bedtime." 

"Well,  Harry,  you  know  Aunt  Maria  wants  an  old-fash 
ioned,  early  party,  at  eight  o'clock  at  the  latest;  and  when 
she  says  she  wants  a  thing,  she  means  it.  She  would 
never  forgive  us  for  being  late." 

"  Dear  me,  Eva,  do  begin  to  dress  over  night  then, "  said 
Harry.  "You  certainly  never  will  get  through  to-morrow, 
if  you  don't." 

"Harry,  you  sauce-box,  I  think  you  talk  abominably 
about  me.  Just  because  I  have  so  many  more  things  to 
see  to  than  he  has!  A  woman's  dress,  of  course,  takes 
more  time;  there  's  a  good  deal  more  to  do  and  every  little 
thing  has  to  be  just  right. " 

"Of  course,  I  know  that,"  said  Harry.  "Haven't  I 
stood,  and  stood,  and  stood,  while  bows  were  tied,  and 
picked  out,  and  patted,  and  flatted,  and  then  pulled  out 
and  tied  over,  and  when  we  were  half  an  hour  behind  time 
already  1  " 

"I  fancy,"  said  Alice,  "that  if  the  secrets  of  some  young 
gentlemen's  toilets  were  unveiled,  we  should  see  that  we 
were  not  alone  in  tying  bows  and  pulling  them  out.  I  've 
known  Tom  to  labor  over  his  neckties  by  the  hour  to 
gether  ;  it  took  him  quite  as  long  to  prink  as  any  of  us 
girls. " 

"But  don't  you  be  alarmed,  Jim,"  said  Eva;  "we  in 
tend  to  be  on  time." 


378  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

"No,  don't,"  said  Harry;  "you  can  have  my  writing- 
table,  and  get  up  your  editorials,  while  the  conjuration  is 
going  on  upstairs." 

"  Just  think,"  said  Alice,  "how  Aunt  Maria  is  coming 
out." 

"Why,  yes,  it 's  a  larger  affair  than  usual,"  said  Eva. 
"A  hundred  invitations!  That  must  be  on  account  of 
Angie. " 

"Oh  yes,"  said  Alice,  "Aunt  Maria  is  pluming  herself 
on  Angie 's  engagement.  Since  she  has  discovered  that 
Mr.  St.  John  has  an  independent  fortune,  there  is  no  end 
to  her  praises  and  felicitations.  Oh,  and  she  has  altered 
her  opinion  entirely  about  his  ritualism.  The  Bishop,  she 
says,  stands  by  him;  and  what  the  Bishop  doesn't  con 
demn,  nobody  has  any  right  to;  and  then  she  sets  forth 
what  a  good  family  he  belongs  to,  and  so  well  connected! 
I  'd  like  to  see  anybody  say  anything  against  Mr.  St. 
John's  practices  before  Aunt  Maria  now! " 

"I  'in  sure  this  party  is  quite  an  outlay  for  Aunt  Maria," 
said  Eva. 

"Oh,"  said  Alice,  "she's  making  all  her  jellies,  and 
blanc-manges,  and  ice  creams  in  the  house.  You  know 
how  perfectly  she  always  does  things.  I  've  been  up  help 
ing  her.  She  will  have  a  splendid  table.  She  was  rather 
glorifying  herself  to  me  that  she  could  get  up  so  fine  a 
show  at  so  little  expense." 

"Well,  she  can,"  said  Eva.  "No  one  can  get  more  for 
a  given  amount  of  money  than  Aunt  Maria.  I  suppose 
that  is  one  of  the  womanly  virtues,  and  one  can  learn  as 
much  of  it  from  her  as  anybody." 

"Yes,"  said  Alice,  "if  a  stylish  party  is  the  thing  to  be 
demonstrated,  Aunt  Maria  will  get  one  up  more  success 
fully,  more  perfect  in  all  points,  and  for  less  money,  than 
any  other  woman  in  New  York.  She  will  have  exactly 
the  right  people,  and  exactly  the  right  things  to  give  them. 


JIM'S   FORTUNES  379 

Her  rooms  will  he  lovely.  She  will  be  dressed  herself  to 
a  T,  and  she  will  say  just  the  right  thing  to  everybody. 
All  her  nice  silver  and  her  pretty  things  will  come  out  of 
their  secret  crypts  and  recesses  to  do  honor  to  the  occasion, 
and,  for  one  night,  all  will  be  suavity  and  sociability  per 
sonified;  and  then  everything  will  go  back  into  lavender, 
the  silver  to  the  safe,  the  chairs  and  lounges  to  their  cover, 
the  shades  will  come  down,  and  her  part  of  the  world's 
debt  of  sociability  will  be  done  up  for  the  year.  Then 
she  will  add  up  the  expense,  and  set  it  down  in  her  ac 
count  book,  and  that  thing  '11  be  finished  and  checked 
off." 

"A  mode  of  proceeding  which  she  was  very  anxious  to 
engraft  upon  me,"  said  Eva;  "but  I  am  a  poor  stock.  My 
instincts  are  for  wrhat  she  would  call  an  expensive,  chronic 
state  of  hospitality,  as  we  live  down  here." 

"Well,"  said  Jim,  "when  I  get  a  house  of  my  own, 
I  'm  going  to  do  as  you  do." 

"Jim  has  got  sight  of  the  domestic  tea-kettle  in  the 
future,"  said  Harry.  "That's  the  first  effect  of  his  pro 
motion.  " 

"Oh,  don't  be  in  a  hurry  about  setting  up  a  house  of 
your  own,"  said  Eva.  "I'm  afraid  we  should  miss  you 
here,  and  you're  an  institution,  Jim;  wre  couldn't  get  on 
without  you." 

"Oh,  Jim  ought  not  to  give  up  to  one  what  was  meant 
for  mankind,"  said  Alice  hardily.  "I  think  there  would 
be  a  universal  protest  against  his  retiring  to  private  life." 

And  Alice  looked  into  the  fire,  apparently  as  sweetly 
unconscious  of  anything  particular  on  Jim's  part  as  if  she 
had  not  read  aright  the  flash  of  his  eye  and  the  pressure 
of  his  hand. 

Jim  seemed  vexed  and  nervous,  and  talked  extravagan 
zas  all  the  evening,  with  more  than  even  his  usual  fluency, 
and  towards  ten  o'clock  said  to  Alice:  — 


380  WE  AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

"I  am  at  your  command  at  any  time,  when  you  are 
ready  to  return  home." 

"Thank  you,  Jim,"  said  Alice,  with  that  demure  and 
easy  composure  with  which  young  ladies  avoid  a  crisis 
without  seeming  to  see  it.  "I  am  going  to  stay  here  to 
night,  to  discuss  some  important  points  of  party  costume 
with  Eva;  so  mind  you  don't  fail  us  to-morrow  night. 
Au  revoir ! " 


CHAPTER   XLIII 

A  MIDNIGHT  CAUCUS  OVER  THE  COALS 

"Now,  don't  you  girls  sit  up  and  talk  all  night,"  said 
Harry  from  the  staircase,  as  he  started  bedward,  after  Jim 
Fellows  had  departed,  and  the  house  door  was  locked  for 
the  night. 

Now,  Eva  was  one  of  that  class  of  household  birds  whose 
eyes  grow  wider  awake  and  brighter  as  the  small  hours  of 
the  night  approach;  and,  just  this  night,  she  felt  herself 
swelling  with  a  world  of  that  distinctively  feminine  talk 
which  women  keep  for  each  other,  when  the  lordly  part  of 
creation  are  out  of  sight  and  hearing.  Harry,  who  worked 
hard  in  his  office  all  day  and  came  home  tired  at  night, 
and  who  had  the  inevitable  next  day's  work  ever  before 
him,  was  always  an  advocate  for  early  and  regular  hours, 
and  regarded  these  sisterly  night-watches  with  suspicion. 

"  You  know,  now,  Eva,  that  you  ought  n't  to  sit  up  late. 
You're  not  strong,"  he  preached  from  the  staircase  in 
warning  tones,  as  he  slowly  ascended. 

"Oh,  no,  dear;  we  won't  be  long.  We've  just  got  a 
few  things  to  talk  over." 

"Well,  you  know  you  never  know  what  time  it  is." 

"Oh,  never  you  mind,  Harry;  you'll  be  asleep  in  ten 
minutes.  I  want  to  talk  with  Ally." 

"There,  now,  he  's  off,"  said  Eva,  gleefully  shutting  the 
door  and  drawing  an  easy-chair  to  the  remains  of  the  fire, 
while  she  disposed  the  little  unburned  brands  and  ends  so 
as  to  make  a  last  blaze;  then,  leaning  back,  she  began 
taking  out  hairpins  and  shaking  down  curls  and  untying 


382  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

ribbons,  as  a  sort  of  preface  to  a  wholly  free  and  easy  con 
versation.  "I  think,  Ally,"  she  said,  with  an  air  of  pro 
found  reflection,  "if  I  were  you,  I  should  wear  my  white 
tarlatan  to-morrow  night,  with  cherry-colored  trimming, 
and  cherry  velvet  in  your  hair.  You  see  that  altering  the 
trimming  changes  the  whole  effect,  so  that  it  will  look 
exactly  like  a  new  dress." 

"I  was  thinking  of  doing  something  with  the  tarlatan," 
said  Alice,  who  had  also  taken  out  her  hairpins  and  let 
down  her  long  masses  of  hair  around  her  handsome  oval 
face,  while  her  great  dark  eyes  were  studying  the  coals 
abstractedly.  It  was  quite  evident  by  the  deep,  intense 
gaze  she  fixed  before  her  that  it  was  not  the  tarlatan  or 
the  trimmings  that  at  that  moment  occupied  her  mind,  but 
something  deeper. 

Eva  saw  and  suspected,  and  went  on  designedly:  "How 
nice  and  lucky  it  was  that  Jim  came  in  just  as  he  did." 

"Yes,  it  was  lucky,"  repeated  Alice  abstractedly,  tak 
ing  off  her  neck-scarf,  and  folding  and  smoothing  it  with 
an  unnecessary  amount  of  precision. 

"Jim  is  such  a  nice  fellow,"  said  Eva.  "I  am  thor 
oughly  delighted  that  he  has  got  that  situation.  It  is 
really  quite  a  position  for  him." 

"Yes,  Jim  is  doing  very  well,"  said  Alice,  with  a  cer 
tain  uneasy  motion. 

"I  really  think,"  pursued  Eva,  "that  your  friendship 
has  been  everything  to  Jim.  We  all  notice  how  much  he 
has  improved." 

"It's  only  that  we  know  him  better,"  said  Alice. 
"Jim  always  was  a  nice  fellow;  but  it  takes  a  very  inti 
mate  acquaintance  to  get  at  the  real  earnest  nature  there 
is  under  all  his  nonsense.  But  after  all,  Eva,  I  'm  a  little 
afraid  of  trouble  in  that  friendship." 

"Trouble  —  how?"  said  Eva,  with  the  most  innocent 
air  in  the  world,  as  if  she  did  not  feel  perfectly  sure  of 
what  was  coming  next. 


A  MIDNIGHT  CAUCUS   OVER  THE   COALS  383 

"  Well,  I  do  think,  and  I  always  have  said,  that  an  inti 
mate  friendship  between  a  lady  and  a  gentleman  is  just 
the  best  thing  for  both  parties." 

"Well,  isn't  it?"  said  Eva. 

"Well,  yes.  But  the  difficulty  is,  it  won't  stay.  It 
will  get  to  be  something  more  than  you  want,  and  that 
makes  a  trouble.  Now,  did  you  notice  Jim's  manner  to 
me  to-night  1 " 

"Well,  I  thought  I  saw  something  rather  suspicious," 
said  Eva  demurely;  "but  then  you  always  have  been  so 
sure  that  there  was  nothing,  and  was  to  be  nothing,  in 
that  quarter." 

"Well,  I  never  have  meant  there  should  be.  I  have 
been  perfectly  honorable  and  aboveboard  with  Jim ;  treated 
him  just  like  a  sister,  and  I  thought  there  was  the  most 
perfect  understanding  between  us." 

"Well,  you  see,  darling,"  said  Eva,  "I've  sometimes 
thought  whether  it  was  quite  fair  to  let  any  one  be  so  very 
intimate  with  one,  unless  one  were  willing  to  take  the 
consequences,  in  case  his  feelings  should  become  deeply 
involved.  Now,  we  should  have  thought  it  a  bad  thing 
for  Mr.  St.  John  to  go  on  cultivating  an  intimate  friend 
ship  with  Angie,  if  he  never  meant  to  marry.  It  would 
be  taking  from  her  feelings  and  affections  that  might  be 
given  to  some  one  who  would  make  her  happy  for  life; 
and  I  think  some  women,  I  don't  mean  you,  of  course, 
but  some  women  I  have  seen  and  heard  of,  like  to  absorb 
all  the  feeling  and  devotion  a  man  has  without  in  the  least 
intending  to  marry  him.  They  keep  him  from  being  in 
terested  in  any  one  else  who  might  make  him  a  happy 
home,  and  won't  have  him  themselves." 

"Eva,  you  are  too  hard,"  said  Alice. 

"Understand  me,  dear;  I  said  I  didn't  mean  you,  for 
I  think  your  course  has  been  perfectly  honorable  and  hon 
est  so  far;  but  I  do  think  you  have  got  to  a  place  that 


384  WE   AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

needs  care.  It 's  my  positive  belief  that  Jim  not  only 
loves  you,  Alice,  but  that  he  is  in  love  with  you  in  a  way 
that  will  have  the  most  serious  effect  on  his  life  and  char 
acter." 

"Oh,  dear  me,  that 's  just  what  I  've  been  fearing,"  said 
Alice;  "isn't  it  too  bad1?  I  really  don't  think  it's  my 
fault.  Do  you  know,  Eva,  I  came  here  meaning  to  go 
home  to-night,  and  I  stayed  only  because  I  was  afraid  to 
walk  home  with  Jim.  I  was  sure  if  I  did  there  would  be 
a  crisis  of  some  kind." 

"For  my  part,  Ally,"  said  Eva,  "I'm  not  so  very  sure 
that  there  has  n't  been  some  advance  in  your  feelings,  as 
well  as  in  Jim's.  I  don't  see  why  you  should  set  it  down 
among  the  impossibles  that  you  should  marry  Jim  Fel 
lows." 

"Oh!  well,"  said  Alice,  "I  like  — yes,  I  really  love 
Jim  very  much;  he  is  very  agreeable  to  me,  always.  I 
know  nobody,  on  the  whole,  more  so ;  but  then,  Eva,  he  's 
not  at  all  the  sort  of  man  I  have  ever  thought  of  as  possible 
for  me  to  marry.  Oh!  not  at  all,"  and  Alice  gazed  before 
her  into  the  coals,  as  if  she  saw  her  hero  through  them. 
"And  what  sort  of  a  man  is  this  phoenix? " 
"Oh!  something  grave,  and  deep,  and  high,  and  heroic." 
Eva  gave  a  light,  little  shrug  to  her  shoulders,  and  rip 
pled  a  laugh.  "And  when  you  have  got  such  a  man,  you 
will  have  to  ask  him  to  go  to  market  for  beef  and  cranberry 
sauce.  You  will  have  to  get  him  to  match  your  worsted, 
and  carry  your  parcels,  and  talk  over  with  him  about  how 
to  cure  the  chimney  of  smoking  and  make  the  kitchen 
range  draw.  Don't  you  think  a  hero  will  be  a  rather 
cumbersome  help  in  housekeeping  1  Besides,  your  heroes 
like  to  sit  on  pedestals  and  have  you  worship  them.  Now, 
for  my  part,  I  'd  rather  have  a  good  kind  man  that  will 
worship  me. 

"  '  A  creature  not  too  bright  and  good 
For  human  nature's  daily  food.' 


A  MIDNIGHT  CAUCUS   OVER   THE  COALS  385 

A  man  like  Harry,  for  instance.  Harry  isn't  a  hero; 
he  's  a  good,  true,  noble-hearted  boy,  though,  and  I  'd 
rather  have  him  than  the  angel  Gabriel,  if  I  could  choose 
now.  I  don't  see  what 's  to  object  to  in  Jim,  if  you  like 
him  and  love  him,  as  you  say.  He's  handsome;  he's 
lively  and  cheerful;  he's  kind  hearted  and  obliging;  and 
he  's  certainly  true  and  constant  in  his  affections:  and  now 
lie  has  a  good  position,  and  one  where  he  can  do  a  good 
work  in  the  world,  and  your  influence  might  help  him  in 
it." 

"Why,  Eva,  you  seem  to  be  pleading  for  him  like  a 
lawyer,"  said  Alice,  apparently  not  at  all  displeased  to  hear 
that  side  of  the  question  discussed. 

"Well,  really,"  said  Eva,  "I  do  think  it  would  be  a 
nice  thing  for  us  all  if  you  could  like  Jim,  for  he  's  one  of 
us;  we  all  know  him  and  like  him,  and  he  wouldn't  take 
you  away  to  the  ends  of  the  earth;  you  might  settle  right 
down  here,  and  live  near  us,  and  all  go  on  together  cosily. 
Jim  is  just  the  fellow  to  make  a  bright,  pleasant,  hospi 
table  home;  and  he's  certain  to  be  a  devoted  husband  to 
whomever  he  marries." 

"Jim  ought  to  be  married,  certainly,"  said  Alice  in  a 
reflective  tone.  "Just  the  right  kind  of  a  marriage  would 
be  the  making  of  him." 

"  Well,  look  over  the  girls  you  know,  and  see  if  there  's 
any  one  that  you  would  like  to  have  Jim  marry." 

"I  know,"  said  Alice,  with  a  quickened  flush  of  color, 
"that  there  isn't  a  girl  he  cares  a  snap  of  his  finger  for." 

"There  's  Jane  Stuyvesant." 

"Oh,  nonsense!  don't  mention  Jane  Stuyvesant!" 

"Well,  she's  rich,  and  brilliant,  and  very  gracious  to 
Jim." 

"Well,  I  happen  to  know  just  how  much  that  amounts 
to.  Jim  never  would  have  a  serious  thought  of  Jane 
Stuyvesant  —  that  I  'm  certain  of.  She  's  a  perfectly  friv 
olous  girl,  and  he  knows  it." 


386  WE   AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

"I  've  thought  sometimes  he  was  quite  attentive  to  one 
of  those  Stephenson  girls,  at  Aunt  Maria's." 

"What,  Sophia  Stephenson!  You  couldn't  have  got 
more  out  of  the  way.  Why,  no!  Why,  she's  nothing 
but  a  breathing  wax  doll;  that 's  all  there  is  to  her.  Jim 
never  could  care  for  her." 

"Well,  what  was  it  about  that  Miss  Du  Hare? " 

U0h,  nothing  at  all,  except  that  she  was  a  dashing,  flirt 
ing  young  thing  that  took  a  fancy  to  Jim  and  invited  him 
to  her  opera  box,  and  of  course  Jim  went.  The  fact  is, 
Jim  is  good  looking  and  lively  and  gay,  and  will  go  a  cer 
tain  way  with  any  nice  girl.  He  likes  to  have  a  jolly, 
good  time;  but  he  has  his  own  thoughts  about  them  all, 
as  I  happen  to  know.  There  isn't  one  of  these  that  he 
has  a  serious  thought  of." 

"Well,  then,  darling,  since  nobody  else  will  suit  him, 
and  it 's  for  his  soul's  health  and  wealth  to  be  married,  I 
don't  see  but  you  ought  to  undertake  him  yourself." 

Alice  smiled  thoughtfully,  and  twisted  her  sash  into 
various  bows,  in  an  abstracted  manner. 

"You  see,"  continued  Eva,  "that  it  would  be  altogether 
improper  for  you  to  enact  the  fable  of  the  dog  in  the 
manger  —  neither  take  him  yourself  nor  let  any  one  else 
have  him." 

"Oh,  as  to  that,"  said  Alice,  flushing  up,  "he  has  my 
free  consent  to  take  anybody  else  he  wants  to ;  only  I  know 
there  isn't  anybody  he  does  want." 

"Except"—  said  Eva. 

"Well,  except  present  company,"  said  Alice.  "I'll 
tell  you,  Eva,  if  anything  could  incline  me  more  to  such 
a  decision,  it  7s  the  way  Aunt  Maria  has  talked  .about  Jim 
to  me  —  setting  him  down  as  if  he  was  the  last  and  most 
improbable  parti  I  could  choose;  and  as  if,  of  course,  I 
never  could  even  think  of  him.  I  don't  see  what  right 
she  has  to  think  so,  when  there  are  girls  a  great  deal  richer 


A  MIDNIGHT  CAUCUS   OVER  THE   COALS  387 

and  standing  higher  in  fashionable  society  than  I  do  that 
would  have  Jim  in  a  minute,  if  they  could  get  him.  Jim 
is  constantly  beset  with  more  invitations  to  parties  and  to 
go  into  society  than  he  can  at  all  meet,  and  I  know  there 
are  plenty  that  would  be  glad  enough  to  take  him." 

"Oh,  but  Aunt  Maria  has  moderated  a  good  deal  as  to 
Jim,  lately,"  said  Eva.  "She  told  me  herself,  the  other 
day,  that  he  really  was  one  of  the  most  gentlemanly,  agree 
able  young  fellows  she  knew  of,  and  said  what  a  pity  it 
was  he  hadn't  a  fortune." 

"Oh,  that  witch  of  a  creature!"  said  Alice,  laughing. 
"He  has  been  just  amusing  himself  with  getting  round 
Aunt  Maria." 

"And  I  dare  say,"  said  Eva,  "that,  if  she  finds  Jim  has 
a  really  good  position,  she  might  at  last  come  to  a  state  of 
resignation.  I  will  say  that  for  Aunt  Maria,  that  after 
fighting  you  for  a  while  she  comes  round  handsomely  — 
when  she  is  certain  that  fighting  is  in  vain;  but  the  most 
amusing  thing  is  to  see  how  she  has  come  down  about  Mr. 
St.  John's  ritualism.  Think  of  her  actually  going  up 
there  to  church  last  Sunday,  and  not  saying  a  word  about 
the  candles,  or  the  chantings,  or  any  of  the  abominations ! 
She  only  remarked  that  she  was  sure  she  never  heard  a 
better  gospel  sermon  than  Mr.  St.  John  preached  —  which 
was  true  enough.  Harry  and  I  were  so  amused  we  could 
hardly  keep  our  faces  straight ;  but  we  said  not  a  word  to 
remind  her  of  past  denunciations." 

"The  danger  of  going  to  Rome  is  sensibly  abated,  it 
appears,"  said  Alice. 

"Oh  yes.  I  believe  Aunt  Maria  must  be  cherishing 
distant  visions  of  a  time  when  she  shall  be  aunt  to  Mr.  St. 
John,  and  set  him  all  straight." 

"She'll  have  her  match  for  once,"  said  Alice,  "if  she 
has  any  such  intentions." 

"One  thing  is  a  comfort,"  said  Eva.      "Aunt  Maria  has 


388  WE   AND   OUK   NEIGHBORS 

her  hands  so  full,  getting  up  Angle's  trousseau,  and  "buy 
ing  her  sheets  and  towels  and  table-cloths,  and  tearing  all 
about,  up  stairs  and  down,  and  through  dark  alleys,  to  get 
everything  of  the  very  best  at  the  smallest  expense,  that 
her  nervous  energies  are  all  used  up,  and  there  is  less  left 
to  be  expended  on  you  and  me.  A  wedding  in  the  family 
is  a  godsend  to  us  all." 

The  conversation  here  branched   off  into   an   animated 
discussion  of   some  points   in  Angie's  wedding  dress,   and 
went  on  with  an  increasing  interest  till  it  was  interrupted 
by  a  dolorous  voice  from  the  top  of  the  entry  staircase. 
"  Girls,  have  you  the  least  idea  what  time  it  is  ? " 
"Why,  there's  Harry,  to  be  sure,"   said  Eva.      "Dear 
me,  Alice,  what  time  is  it  1 " 

"Half  past  one!  Mercy  on  us!  isn't  it  a  shame?" 
"Coming,  Harry,  coming  this  minute,"  called  Eva,  as 
the  two  sisters  began  turning  down  the  gas  and  raking  up 
the  fire;  then,  gathering  together  collars,  hairpins,  ribbons, 
sashes,  and  scarfs,  they  flew  up  the  stairway,  and  parted 
with  a  suppressed  titter  of  guilty  consciousness. 

"It  was  abominable  of   us,"   said  Eva;    "but  I  never 
looked  at  the  clock." 


CHAPTEE  XLW 

FLUCTUATIONS 

MIDNIGHT  conversations  of  the  sort  we  have  chronicled 
between  Alice  and  Eva  do  not  generally  lead  to  the  most 
quiet  kind  of  sleep.  Such  conversations  suggest  a  great 
deal,  and  settle  nothing;  and  Alice,  after  retiring,  lay  a 
long  time  with  her  great  eyes  wide  open,  looking  into  the 
darkness  of  futurity,  and  wondering,  as  girls  of  twenty-two 
or  thereabouts  do  wonder,  what  she  should  do  next. 

There  is  no  help  for  it;  the  fact  may  as  well  be  con 
fessed  at  once,  that  no  care  and  assiduity  in  fencing  and 
fortifying  the  conditions  of  a  friendship  between  an  attrac 
tive  young  woman  and  a  lively,  energetic  young  man  will 
insure  their  always  remaining  simply  and  purely  those  of 
companionship  and  good  fellowship,  and  never  becoming 
anything  more.  In  the  case  of  St.  John  and  Angie,  the 
stalk  of  friendship  had  had  but  short  growth  before  devel 
oping  the  flower  of  love;  and  now,  in  Alice's  mind  and 
conscience,  it  was  becoming  quite  a  serious  and  troublesome 
question  whether  a  similar  result  were  not  impending  over 
her. 

The  wise  man  of  old  said,  "He  that  delicately  bringeth 
up  his  servant  from  a  child  shall  have  him  for  his  son  at 
last."  The  proverb  is  significant,  as  showing  the  gradual 
growth  of  kindly  relations  into  something  more  and  more 
kindly,  and  more  absorbing.  So,  in  the  night-watches, 
Alice  mentally  reviewed  all  those  looks,  words,  and  actions 
of  Jim's  which  produced  a  conviction  in  her  mind  that  he 
was  passing  beyond  the  allotted  boundaries,  and  approach- 


390  WE   AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

ing  towards  a  point  in  which  there  would  inevitably  be  a 
crisis,  calling  for  a  decision  on  her  part  which  should  make 
him  either  more  or  less  than  he  had  been.  Her  talk  with 
Eva  had  only  set  this  possibility  more  distinctly  before  her. 

Was  she,  then,  willing  to  give  him  up  entirely,  and  to 
shut  the  door  resolutely  on  all  intimacy  tending  to  keep 
up  and  encourage  feelings  that  could  come  to  no  result? 
When  she  proposed  this  to  herself,  she  was  surprised  at 
her  own  unwillingness  to  let  him  go.  She  could  scarcely 
fancy  herself  able  to  do  without  his  ready  friendship,  his 
bright,  agreeable  society  —  without  the  sense  of  ownership 
and  power  which  she  felt  in  him.  Reviewing  the  matter 
strictly  in  the  night- wratches,  she  was  obliged  to  admit  to 
herself  that  she  could  not  afford  to  part  with  Jim;  that 
there  was  no  woman  she  could  fancy  —  certainly  none  in 
the  circle  of  her  acquaintance  —  whom  she  could  be  sin 
cerely  glad  to  have  him  married  to;  and  when  she  fancied 
him  absorbed  in  any  one  else,  there  was  a  dreary  sense  of 
loss  which  surprised  her.  Was  it  possible,  she  asked  her 
self,  that  he  had  become  necessary  to  her  happiness  —  he 
whom  she  never  thought  of  otherwise  than  as  a  pleasant 
friend,  a  brother,  for  whose  success  and  good  fortune  she 
had  interested  herself  1 

Well,  then,  was  she  ready  for  an  engagement?  Was  the 
great  ultimate  revelation  of  woman's  life  —  that  dark  Eleu- 
sinian  mystery  of  fate  about  which  vague  conjecture  loves 
to  gather,  and  which  the  imagination  invests  with  all  sorts 
of  dim  possibilities  —  suddenly  to  draw  its  curtains  and 
disclose  to  her  neither  demi-god  nor  hero,  but  only  the 
well-known,  every-day  features  of  one  with  whom  she  had 
been  walking  side  by  side  for  months  past  —  "only  Jim 
and  nothing  more  "  ? 

Alice  could  not  but  acknowledge  to  herself  that  she 
knew  no  man  possible  or  probable  that  she  liked  better ; 
and  yet  this  shadowy,  ideal  rival  —  this  cross  between  saint 


FLUCTUATIONS  391 

and  hero,  this  Knight  of  the  Holy  Grail  —  was  as  embar 
rassing  to  her  conclusions  as  the  ghost  in  "Hamlet."  It 
was  only  to  be  considered  that  the  ideal  hero  had  not  put 
in  an  actual  appearance.  He  was  nowhere  to  be  found  or 
heard  from;  and  here  was  this  warm-hearted,  helpful,  com 
panionable  Jim,  with  faults  as  plenty  as  blackberries,  but 
with  dozens  of  agreeable  qualities  to  every  fault;  and  the 
time  seemed  to  be  rapidly  coming  when  she  must  make  up 
her  mind  either  to  take  him  or  leave  him,  and  she  was  not 
ready  to  do  either !  2s  o  wonder  she  lay  awake,  and  studied 
the  squares  of  the  dim  window  and  listened  to  the  hours 
that  struck,  one  after  another,  bringing  her  no  nearer  to 
fixed  conclusions  than  before !  A  young  lady  who  sees  the 
time  coming  when  she  must  make  a  decision,  and  who 
does  n't  want  to  take  either  alternative  presented,  is  cer 
tainly  to  be  pitied.  Alice  felt  herself  an  abused  and 
afflicted  young  woman.  She  murmured  at  destiny.  Why 
would  men  fall  in  love?  she  queried.  Why  wouldn't  they 
remain  always  devoted,  admiring  friends,  and  get  no  fur 
ther?  She  was  having  such  good  times!  and  why  must 
they  end  in  a  dilemma  of  this  sort?  How  nice  to  have 
a  gentleman  friend,  all  devotion,  all  observance,  all  hom 
age,  without  its  involving  any  special  consequences ! 

When  she  came  to  shape  this  feeling  into  words  and 
look  at  it,  she  admitted  that  it  savored  of  the  worst  kind 
of  selfishness,  and  might  lead  to  trifling  with  what  is  most 
precious  and  sacred.  Alice  was  a  conscientious,  honorable 
girl,  and  felt  all  the  force  of  this.  She  had  justified  her 
self  all  along  by  saying  that  her  intimacy  with  Jim  had  so 
far  been  for  his  good ;  that  he  had  often  expressed  to  her 
his  sense  that  she  was  leading  him  to  a  higher  and  better 
life,  to  more  worthy  and  honorable  aims  and  purposes :  but 
how  if  he  should  claim  that  this  very  ministry  had  made 
her  necessary  to  him,  and  that,  if  she  threw  him  off,  it 
would  be  worse  than  if  she  had  never  known  him  ?  Look- 


392  WE   AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

ing  over  the  history  of  the  last  few  months,  she  could  not 
deny  to  herself  that,  as  their  acquaintance  had  grown  more 
and  more  confidential,  her  manners  possibly  had  expressed  a 
degree  of  kindness  which  might  justly  have  inspired  hopes. 
Was  she  not  bound  to  fulfill  such  hopes  if  she  could? 

These  were  most  uncomfortable  inquiries,  and  she  was 
glad  of  morning  and  a  cheerful  breakfast-table  to  dispel 
them.  Things  never  look  so  desperate  by  daylight,  and 
Alice  managed  a  good  breakfast  with  a  tolerable  appetite. 
Then  there  was  the  tarlatan  dress  to  be  made  over  and 
rearranged,  and  Eva's  toilet  to  be  put  into  party  order  — 
quite  enough  to  keep  two  young  women  of  active  fancy  and 
skillful  fingers  busy  for  one  day.  It  was  a  snowy,  unplea 
sant  day,  and,  as  they  lived  on  an  out-of-the-way  street, 
they  were  secure  from  callers  and  took  their  work  into  the 
parlor  as  soon  as  Harry  had  gone  for  the  day.  The  little 
room  soon  became  a  brilliant  maelstrom  of  gauzy  stuffs 
and  bright  ribbons,  among  which  the  two  sat  chatting, 
arranging,  combining,  compounding;  as  of  old,  one  might 
imagine  a  pair  of  heathen  goddesses  in  the  clouds,  getting 
up  rainbows.  No  matter  how  solemn  and  serious  we  of 
womankind  are  in  our  deepest  hearts,  or  how  philosophi 
cally  we  may  look  down  on  the  vanity  of  dress,  we  must 
all  confess  that  a  party  is  a  party ;  and  the  sensible,  eco 
nomical  woman  who  does  net  often  go,  and  does  not  make 
a  point  of  having  all  the  paraphernalia  in  constant  readi 
ness,  has  to  give  all  the  more  care  and  thought  to  the  ex 
ceptional  occasion  when  she  does.  Even  Scripture  recog 
nizes  the  impossibility  of  appearing  at  a  feast  without  the 
appropriate  garment;  and  so  Eva  and  Alice  cut  and  fitted 
and  trimmed,  and  tried  experiments  in  head-dresses  and 
arrangements  of  hair;  and  meanwhile  Alice  had  the  com 
fort  of  talking  over  and  over  to  Eva  all  the  varying  shades 
of  the  subject  that  was  on  her  mind. 

What  woman   does    not    appreciate    the    blessing    of    a 


FLUCTUATIONS  393 

patient,  sympathetic  listener,  who  will  hear  with  unabated 
interest  the  same  story  repeated  over  and  over  as  it  rises  in 
one's  thoughts?  Eva  listened  complacently  and  with  the 
warmest  interest  to  the  same  things  that  Alice  had  said 
the  night  before,  and  went  on  repeating  to  her  the  same 
lessons  of  matronly  wisdom  with  which  she  had  then  en 
riched  her,  neither  of  them  betraying  the  slightest  con 
sciousness  that  the  things  they  were  saying  were  not  just 
fresh  from  the  mint  —  entirely  new  and  hitherto  unconsid- 
ered. 

Jim's  character  was  discussed,  and  with  that  fine,  skill 
ful  faculty  of  analysis  and  synthesis  which  forms  the  dis 
tinctive  interest  of  feminine  conversation.  In  the  course 
of  these  various  efforts  of  character  portrait-painting,  it 
became  quite  evident  to  Eva  that  Alice  was  in  just  that 
state  in  which  some  people's  admitted  faults  are  more  in 
teresting  and  agreeable  than  the  virtues  of  some  others. 
When  a  woman  gets  thus  far,  her  final  decision  is  not  a 
matter  of  doubt  to  any  far-sighted  reader  of  human  nature. 

Alice  was  by  nature  exact  and  conscientious  as  to  all 
rules,  forms,  and  observances.  Her  pronunciation,  whether 
of  English  or  French,  was  critically  perfect;  her  hand 
writing  and  composition  were  faultless  to  a  comma.  She 
was  an  enthusiastic  and  thorough  maintainer  of  all  the 
boundaries  and  forms  of  good  society  and  of  churchly  devo 
tion.  Jim,  without  being  in  any  sense  really  immoral  or 
wicked,  was  a  sort  of  privileged  Arab,  careering  in  and 
out  through  the  boundaries  of  all  departments,  shocking 
respectable  old  prejudices  and  fluttering  reverential  usages, 
talking  slang,  and  making  light  of  dignitaries  with  a  free 
and  easy  handling  that  was  alarming. 

But  it  is  a  fact  that  very  correct  people,  who  would  not 
violate  in  their  own  persons  one  of  the  convenances,  are 
often  exceedingly  amused  and  experience  a  peculiar  plea 
sure  in  seeing  them  tossed  hither  and  thither  by  somebody 


394  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

else.  Nothing  is  so  tiresome  as  perfect  correctness,  and 
we  all  know  that  everything  that  amuses  us  and  makes 
us  laugh  lies  outside  of  it ;  and  Alice,  if  the  truth  were  to 
be  told,  liked  Jim  all  the  better  for  the  very  things  in 
which  he  was  most  unlike  herself.  Well,  such  being  the 
state  of  the  garrison  on  the  one  side,  what  was  the  posi 
tion  of  the  attacking  party  ? 

Jim  had  gone  home  discontented  at  not  having  a  private 
interview  with  Alice,  but  more  and  more  resolved,  with 
every  revolving  hour  since  the  accession  of  good  fortune 
which  had  given  him  a  settled  position,  that  he  would  have 
a  home  of  his  own  forthwith,  and  that  the  queen  of  that 
home  should  be  Alice  Van  Arsdel.  She  must  not,  she 
could  not,  she  would  not  say  him  Nay;  and  if  she  did, 
he  would  n't  take  No  for  an  answer.  He  would  have  her, 
if  he  had  to  serve  for  her  as  long  as  Jacob  did  for  Rachel. 
But  when  Jim  remembered  how  many  times  he  had  per 
suaded  Alice  to  his  own  way,  how  many  favors  she  had 
granted  him,  he  was  certain  that  it  was  not  in  her  to 
refuse.  He  had  looked  with  new  interest  at  the  advertise 
ments  of  houses  to  let,  and  the  furniture  stores  for  the  last 
few  days  had  worn  a  new  and  suggestive  aspect.  He  had 
commenced  transactions  with  regard  to  parlor  furniture, 
and  actually  bought  a  pair  of  antique  brass  andirons,  which 
he  was  sure  would  be  just  the  thing  for  their  fireside. 
Then  he  had  bought  an  engagement  ring,  which  lay  snugly 
ensconced  in  its  satin  case  in  a  corner  of  his  vest  pocket, 
and  he  was  inly  resolved  that  he  would  make  to  himself  a 
chance  to  lodge  it  on  the  proper  finger  in  the  next  twenty- 
four  hours.  How  he  was  to  get  an  interview  did  not  yet 
appear;  but  he  trusted  to  Providence.  It  is  a  fact  on 
record,  that  before  the  twenty-four  hours  were  up  the  deed 
was  done,  and  Jim  and  Alice  were  engaged;  but  it  came 
about  in  a  way  far  different  from  any  foreseen  by  any 
party,  as  we  shall  proceed  to  show. 


CHAPTER  XLV 

THE  VALLEY  OF  THE  SHADOW 

IT  wanted  yet  twenty  minutes  to  eight  o'clock,  and  Jim 
was  sitting  alone  in  the  glow  of  the  evening  fireside.  The 
warm,  red  light,  flickering  and  shadowing,  made  the  room 
seem  like  a  mysterious  grotto.  Jim,  in  best  party  trim, 
sat  gazing  dreamily  into  the  fire,  turning  the  magic  ring 
now  and  then  in  his  vest  pocket,  and  looking  at  his  watch 
at  intervals,  while  the  mysterious  rites  of  the  toilet  were 
going  on  upstairs. 

Alice  had  never  made  a  more  elaborate  or  more  careful 
toilet.  Did  she  want  to  precipitate  that  which  she  said  to 
herself  she  dreaded  ?  Certainly  she  did  not  spare  one  pos 
sible  attraction.  She  evidently  saw  no  reason,  under  pre 
sent  circumstances,  why  she  should  not  make  herself  look 
as  well  as  she  could. 

As  the  result  of  the  whole  day's  agitations  and  discus 
sions,  she  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  if  Jim  had  any 
thing  to  say  she  would  listen  to  it  advisedly,  and  take  it 
into  mature  consideration.  So  she  braided  her  long,  dark 
hair,  and  crowned  herself  therewith,  and  then  earrings  and 
brooches  came  twinkling  out  here  and  there  like  stars,  and 
bits  of  ribbon  and  velvet  fluttered  hither  and  thither,  and 
fell  into  wonderfully  apposite  places,  and  the  woman  grew 
and  brightened  before  the  glass,  as  a  picture  under  the 
hands  of  the  artist.  It  wanted  yet  a  quarter  of  an  hour  of 
the  time  for  the  carriage,  when  there  came  a  light  fluff  of 
gauzy  garments,  and  the  two  party  goddesses  floated  in  in 
all  misty  splendor,  and  seemed  to  fill  the  whole  room  with 
the  flutter  of  dresses. 


396  WE  AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

Alice  was  radiant;  her  eyes  were  never  more  brilliant, 
and  she  was  full  of  that  subtle  brightness  which  comes 
from  the  tremor  of  fully  awakened  feeling.  She  was  gayer 
than  was  her  usual  wont  as  she  swept  about  the  room  and 
courtesied  with  much  solemnity  to  Jim,  and  turned  her 
self  round  and  round  after  the  manner  of  a  revolving  figure 
in  the  shop  windows. 

Suddenly  —  and  none  of  them  knew  how  —  there  was  a 
quick  flash;  the  gauzy  robe  had  swept  into  the  fire,  and, 
before  any  of  them  could  speak,  the  dress  was  in  flames. 
There  was  a  scream,  an  utterance  of  agony  from  all  parties 
at  once,  and  Eva  was  just  doing  the  most  fatal  thing  possi 
ble  in  rushing  desperately  towards  her  sister,  when  Jim 
came  between  them,  caught  the  woolen  cloth  from  the 
table,  and  wrapped  it  around  Alice;  then,  taking  her  in 
his  arms,  he  laid  her  on  the  sofa,  and  crushed  out  the  fire, 
beating  it  with  his  hands,  and  tearing  the  burning  frag 
ments  away  and  casting  them  under  foot.  It  all  passed  in 
one  fearful,  awe-struck  moment,  while  Eva  stood  still,  with 
the  very  shadow  of  death  upon  her,  and  saw  Jim  fighting 
back  the  fire,  which  in  a  moment  or  two  was  entirely  ex 
tinguished.  Alice  had  fainted,  and  Jim  and  Eva  looked 
at  each  other  as  people  do  who  have  just  seen  death  rising 
up  between  them. 

"She  is  safe  now,"  said  Jim,  as  he  stood  there,  pale  as 
death  and  quivering  from  head  to  foot,  while  the  floor 
around  was  strewed  with  the  blackened  remains  of  the 
gauzy  material  which  he  had  torn  away.  "She  is  all 
right,"  he  added;  "the  cloth  has  saved  her  throat  and 
lungs." 

It  seemed  now  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world  that 
Jim  should  lay  Alice's  head  upon  his  arm  and  administer 
restoratives;  and,  when  she  opened  her  eyes,  that  he 
should  call  her  his  darling,  his  life,  his  love.  They  had 
been  in  the  awful  valley  of  the  shadow  together  —  that 


THE  VALLEY  OF  THE  SHADOW         397 

valley  where  all  that  is  false  perishes  and  drops  off,  and 
what  is  true  becomes  the  only  reality.  Alice  felt  that  she 
loved  Jim  —  that  she  belonged  to  him,  and  she  did  not 
dispute  his  right  to  speak  as  he  did,  and  to  care  for  her 
as  one  had  a  right  to  care  for  his  own. 

"Well,"  said  Eva,  drawing  a  long  breath,  when  the  bell 
rang  and  the  carriage  was  announced,  "we  cannot  go  to 
the  party,  that  is  certain;  and,  Jim,  tell  him  to  go  for  Dr. 
Campbell.  Mary,  bring  down  a  wrapper;  we'll  slip  it 
over  your  torn  finery,  Alice,  for  the  present,"  said  Eva, 
endeavoring  to  be  practical  and  self-possessed,  though  with 
a  little  hysterical  sob  every  now  and  then  betraying  the 
shock  to  her  nerves.  "  Then  there  must  be  a  note  sent  to 
Aunt  Maria,  or  what  will  she  think  1 "  pursued  Eva,  when 
Alice  had  been  made  comfortable  on  the  sofa,  where  Jim 
was  devoting  himself  to  her. 

"Don't,  pray,  tell  all  about  it,"  said  Alice.  "One 
does  n't  want  to  become  the  talk  of  all  New  York." 

"I  '11  tell  her  that  you  have  met  with  an  accident  that 
will  detain  you  and  me,  but  that  you  are  not  dangerous," 
said  Eva,  as  she  wrote  her  note  and  sent  Mary  up  with  it. 

It  was  not  until  tranquillity  had  somewhat  settled  down 
on  the  party  that  Jim  began  to  feel  that  his  own  hands 
were  blistered;  for,  though  a  man  under  strong  excitement 
may  handle  fire  for  a  while  and  not  feel  it,  yet  Nature 
keeps  account  and  brings  in  her  bill  in  due  season. 

"Why,  Jim,  you  brave  fellow,"  said  Alice,  suddenly 
raising  herself,  as  she  saw  an  expression  of  pain  on  his 
face,  "here  I  am  thinking  only  of  myself,  and  you  are 
suffering. " 

"Oh,  nothing;  nothing  at  all,"  said  Jim;  but  Eva  and 
Alice,  now  thoroughly  aroused,  were  shocked  at  the  state 
of  his  hands. 

"The  doctor  will  have  you  to  attend  to  first,"  said  Alice. 
"You  have  saved  me  by  sacrificing  yourself." 


398  WE   AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

"Thank  God  for  that! "  said  Jim  fervently. 

Well,  the  upshot  of  the  story  is  that  Eva  would  not  hear 
of  Jim's  leaving  them  that  night.  Dr.  Campbell  pro 
nounced  that  the  burns  on  his  hands  needed  serious  atten 
tion,  and  the  prospect  was  that  he  would  be  obliged  to  rest 
from  using  them  for  a  day  or  two.  But  these  two  or  three 
days  of  hospital  care  were  not  on  the  whole  the  worst  of 
Jim's  life,  for  Alice  insisted  on  being  his  amanuensis,  and 
writing  his  editorials  for  him,  and,  as  she  wrote  with  the 
engagement  ring  sparkling  on  her  finger,  Jim  thought  that 
he  had  never  seen  it  appear  to  so  great  advantage.  It  was 
said  that  Jim's  editorials,  that  week,  had  a  peculiar  vigor 
and  pungency.  We  should  not  at  all  wonder,  under  the 
circumstances,  if  that  were  the  case. 


CHAPTEE   XLVI 

WHAT    THEY    ALL    SAID    ABOUT    IT 

AND  so  Jim  Fellows  and  Alice  Van  Arsdel  were  en 
gaged  at  last.  The  reader  who  has  cared  to  follow  the 
workings  of  that  young  lady's  mind  has  doubtless  seen 
from  the  first  that  she  was  on  the  straight  highway  to  such 
a  result. 

Intimate  friendship  —  what  the  French  call  camara 
derie —  is,  in  fact,  the  healthiest  and  best  commencement 
of  the  love  that  is  needed  in  married  life;  because  it  is 
more  like  what  the  staple  of  married  life  must  at  last 
come  to.  It  gives  opportunity  for  the  knowledge  of  all 
those  minor  phases  of  character  under  which  a  married 
couple  must  at  last  see  each  other. 

Alice  and  Jim  had  been  side  by  side  in  many  an  every 
day  undress  rehearsal.  They  had  laughed  and  frolicked 
together  like  two  children;  they  had  known  each  other's 
secrets;  they  had  had  their  little  miffs  and  tiffs,  and  had 
gotten  over  them;  but,  through  all,  there  had  been  a 
steady  increase  on  Jim's  part  of  that  deeper  feeling  which 
makes  a  woman  the  ideal  guide  and  governor  and  the  ex 
ternal  conscience  of  life.  But  his  habit  of  jesting,  and  of 
talking  along  the  line  of  his  most  serious  feelings  in  lan 
guage  running  between  joke  and  earnest,  had  prevented  the 
pathos  and  the  power  of  what  was  really  deepest  in  him 
from  making  itself  felt.  There  wanted  something  to  call 
forth  the  expression  of  the  deep  manly  feeling  that  lay  at 
the  bottom  of  his  heart.  There  wanted,  on  her  part, 
something  to  change  friendship  to  a  warmer  feeling.  Those 


400  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

few  dreadful  moments,  when  they  stood  under  the  cloud  of 
a  sudden  and  frightful  danger,  did  more  to  reveal  to  them 
how  much  they  were  to  each  other  than  years  of  ordinary 
acquaintance.  It  was  as  if  they  had  crossed  the  river  of 
death  together,  and  saw  each  other  in  their  higher  natures. 
Do  we  not  all  remember  how  suffering  and  danger  will 
bring  out  in  well-known  faces  a  deep  and  spiritual  expres 
sion  never  there  before  ?  It  was  a  marked  change  in  the 
faces  of  our  boys  who  went  to  the  recent  war.  Looking 
in  a  photograph  book,  one  sees  first  the  smooth  lines  of  a 
boyish  face  indicating  nothing  more  than  a  boy's  experience, 
but,  as  he  turns  the  following  pages,  he  sees  the  same  face, 
after  suffering  and  danger  and  death  have  called  up  the 
strength  of  the  inner  man,  and  imparted  a  higher  and  more 
spiritual  expression  to  the  countenance. 

The  sudden  nearness  into  which  they  had  come  to  the 
ever  possible  tragedy  that  underlies  human  life  had  given 
a  deep  and  solemn  tenderness  to  their  affection.  It  was 
a  baptism  into  the  love  which  is  stronger  than  death. 
Alice  felt  her  whole  heart  going  out,  without  a  fear  or  a 
doubt,  in  return  for  the  true  love  that  she  felt  was  ready 
to  die  for  her. 

Those  few  first  days  that  they  spent  mostly  in  each 
other's  society  were  full  of  the  real,  deep,  enthusiastic 
tenderness  of  that  understanding  of  each  other  which  had 
suddenly  arisen  between  them. 

So,  to  her  confidential  female  correspondent  —  the,  one 
who  had  always  held  her  promise  to  be  the  first  recipient 
of  the  news  of  her  engagement  —  she  wrote  as  follows :  — 

Yes,  dear  Belle,  I  have  to  tell  you  at  last  that  I  am 
engaged  —  engaged,  with  all  my  heart  and  soul,  to  Jim 
Fellows.  I  see  your  wonder,  I  hear  you  saying,  "You 
said  it  never  was  to  be ;  that  there  never  would  be  any 
thing  in  it.'7  Well,  dear  Belle,  when  I  said  that  I  thought 


WHAT   THEY  ALL   SAID   ABOUT   IT  401 

it;  but  it  seems  I  didn't  know  myself  or  him.  But  Eva 
has  told  you  of  the  dreadful  danger  I  ran;  the  shock  to 
my  nerves,  the  horror,  the  fright,  were  something  I  never 
shall  forget.  By  God's  mercy  he  saved  my  life,  and  I  saw 
and  felt  at  that  time  how  dear  I  was  to  him,  and  how 
much  he  was  willing  to  suffer  for  me.  The  poor  fellow  is 
not  yet  fully  recovered,  and  I  cannot  recall  that  sudden 
fright  without  being  almost  faint.  I  cared  a  good  deal  for 
him  before,  and  knew  he  cared  for  me  ;  but  this  dreadful 
shock  revealed  us  to  each  other  as  we  had  never  known 
each  other  before.  I  am  perfectly  settled  now  and  have  not 
a  doubt.  There  is  all  the  seriousness  and  all  the  depth 
that  is  in  me  in  the  promise  I  have  at  last  given  him. 

Jim  is  not  rich,  but  he  has  just  obtained  a  good  posi 
tion  as  one»of  the  leading  editors  of  the  "Forum,"  enough 
to  make  it  prudent  for  him  to  think  of  having  a  home  of 
his  own;  and  I  thank  God  for  the  reverses  of  fortune  that 
have  taught  me  how  to  be  a  helpful  and  sensible  wife.  We 
don't  either  of  us  care  for  show  or  fashion,  but  mean  to 
have  another  fireside  like  Eva's.  Exactly  when  this  thing 
is  to  be  is  not  yet  settled;  but  you  shall  have  due  notice 
to  get  your  bridesmaid's  dress  ready. 

So  wrote  Alice  to  her  bridesmaid  that  was  to  be. 
Meanwhile,  the  declared  engagement  went  its  way,  travel 
ing  through  the  circle,  making  everywhere  its  sensation. 

We  believe  there  is  nothing  so  generally  interesting  to 
human  nature  as  a  newly  declared  engagement.  It  is  a 
thing  that  everybody  has  an  opinion  of;  and  the  editorial 
comments,  though  they  do  not  go  into  print,  are  fully  as 
numerous  and  as  positive  as  those  following  a  new  ap 
pointment  at  Washington.  Especially  is  this  the  case 
where  the  parties,  being  long  under  suspicion  and  accusa 
tion,  have  denied  the  impeachment,  and  vehemently  pro 
tested  that  "there  was,  and  there  would  be,  nothing  in  it," 


402  WE   AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

and  that  "it  was  only  friendship."  When,  after  all  the 
strength  of  such  asseveration,  the  flag  is  finally  struck, 
and  the  suspected  parties  walk  forth  openly,  hand  in  hand, 
what  a  number  of  people  immediately  rise  in  their  own 
opinion,  saying  with  complacency:  "There!  what  did  I 
tell  you  1  I  knew  it  was  so.  People  may  talk  as  much 
as  they  please,  they  can't  deceive  me!  " 

Among  the  first  to  receive  the  intelligence  was  little 
Mrs.  Betsey,  who,  having  been  over  with  Jack  to  make  a 
morning  call  at  the  Henderson  house,  had  her  very  cap 
lifted  from  her  head  with  amazement  at  the  wonderful 
news.  So,  panting  with  excitement,  she  rushed  back 
across  the  way  to  astonish  Miss  Dorcas,  and  burst  in  upon 
her,  with  Jack  barking  like  a  storming  party  in  the  rear. 

"Good  gracious,  Betsey,  what's  the  matter  now  1 "  said 
Miss  Dorcas.  "What  has  happened?  " 

"Well,  what  should  you  think?  You  can't  guess! 
Jack,  be  still !  stop  barking !  Stop,  sir ! "  —  as  Jack  ran 
under  a  chair  in  a  distant  corner  of  the  room,  and  fired 
away  with  contumacious  energy. 

"Yes,  Dorcas,  I  have  such  a  piece  of  news!  I  declare, 
that  dog !  —  I  '11  kill  him  if  he  don't  stop !  "  and  Mrs.  Bet 
sey,  on  her  knees,  dragged  Jack  out  of  his  hiding-place, 
and  cuffed  him  into  silence,  and  then  went  on  with  her 
news,  which  she  determined  to  make  the  most  of,  and  let 
out  a  bit  at  a  time,  as  children  eat  gingerbread. 

"Well,  now,  Betsey,  since  the  scuffle  is  over  between 
you  and  Jack,  perhaps  you  will  tell  me  what  all  this  is 
about,"  said  Miss  Dorcas,  with  dignity. 

"Well,  Dorcas,  it's  another  engagement;  and  who  do 
you  guess  it  is?  You  never  will  guess  in  the  world,  I 
know;  now  guess." 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Miss  Dorcas,  critically  surveying 
Mrs.  Betsey  over  her  spectacles,  "unless  it  is  you  and  old 
Major  Galbraith." 


WHAT   THEY    ALL   SAID   ABOUT    IT  403 

"Aren't  you  ashamed,  Dorcas?  "  said  the  little  old  lady, 
two  late  pink  roses  coming  in  either  cheek.  "Major  Gal- 
braith !  —  old  and  deaf  and  with  the  rheumatism !  " 

"Well,  you  wanted  me  to  guess,  and  I  guessed  the  two 
most  improbable  people  in  the  circle  of  our  acquaintance." 
Now,  Major  Galbraith  was  an  old  admirer  of  Mrs.  Betsey's 
youth,  an  ancient  fossil  remain  of  the  distant  period  to 
which  Miss  Dorcas  and  Mrs.  Betsey  belonged.  He  was 
an  ancient  bachelor,  dwelling  in  an  ancient  house  on  Mur 
ray  Hill,  and  subsisting  on  the  dry  hay  of  former  recollec 
tions.  Once  a  year,  on  Christmas  or  New  Year's,  the  old 
major  caused  himself  to  be  brought  carefully  in  a  carriage 
to  the  door  of  the  Vanderheyden  house,  creaked  laboriously 
up  the  steps,  pulled  the  rusty,  jangling  old  bell,  and  was 
shown  into  the  sombre  twilight  of  the  front  parlor,  where 
he  paid  his  respects  to  the  ladies  with  the  high-shouldered, 
elaborate  stateliness  and  gallantry  of  a  former  period. 
The  compliments  which  the  major  brought  out  on  these 
occasions  were  of  the  most  elaborate  and  well-considered 
kind,  for  he  had  an  abundance  of  leisure  to  compose  them 
and  very  few  ladies  to  let  them  off  upon.  They  had,  for 
the  parties  to  whom  they  were  addressed,  all  the  value  of 
those  late  roses  and  violets  which  one  now  and  then  finds  in 
the  garden,  when  the  last  black  frosts  have  picked  off  the 
blooms  of  summer.  The  main  difficulty  of  the  interview 
always  was  the  fact  that  the  poor  major  was  stone-deaf, 
and,  in  spite  of  both  ladies  screaming  themselves  hoarse, 
he  carried  away  the  most  obviously  erroneous  impressions, 
to  last  him  through  the  next  year.  Yet,  in  ages  past,  the 
major  had  been  a  man  of  high  fashion,  and  he  was,  if  one 
only  could  get  at  him,  on  many  accounts  better  worth  talk 
ing  to  than  many  modern  beaux ;  but  as  age  and  time  had 
locked  him  in  a  case  and  thrown  away  the  key,  the  sug 
gestion  of  tender  relations  between  him  and  Mrs.  Betsey 
was  impossible  enough  to  answer  Miss  Dorcas's  purpose. 


404  WE  AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

But  Mrs.  Betsey  was  bursting  to  begin  on  the  contents 
of  her  news-bag,  and  so  out  it  came.  "Well  now,  Dorcas, 
if  you  won't  go  to  being  ridiculous,  and  talking  about 
Major  Galbraith,  I  '11  tell  you  who  it  is.  It 's  that  dear, 
good  Mr.  Fellows  that  got  Jack  back  again  for  us,  and 
I  'm  sure  I  never  feel  as  if  I  could  do  enough  for  him  when 
I  think  of  it;  and  besides  that,  he  always  is  so  polite  and 
considerate,  and  talks  with  one  so  nicely  and  is  so  atten 
tive,  seems  to  think  something  of  you,  if  you  are  an  old 
woman;  so  that  I'm  glad  with  all  my  heart,  for  I  think 
it 's  a  splendid  thing,  and  she  's  just  the  one  for  him,  and 
do  you  know  I  've  been  thinking  a  great  while  that  it  was 
going  to  be  1  I  have  noticed  signs,  and  have  had  my  own 
thoughts,  but  I  didn't  let  on.  I  despise  people  that  are 
always  prying  and  spying  and  expressing  opinions  before 
they  know." 

This  lucid  exposition  might  have  proceeded  at  greater 
length  had  not  Miss  Dorcas,  whose  curiosity  was  now  fully 
roused,  cut  into  the  conversation  with  an  air  of  judicial 
decision.  "Well  now,  after  all,  Betsey,  will  you  have  the 
goodness,  since  you  began  to  tell  the  news,  to  tell  it  like  a 
reasonable  creature  1  Mr.  Fellows  is  the  happy  man,  you 
say.  Now,  who  —  is  —  the  woman  1  " 

"Oh,  didn't  I  tell  you?  Why,  what  is  the  matter  with 
me  to-day?  I  thought  I  said  Miss  Alice  Van  Arsdel. 
Won't  she  make  him  a  splendid  wife,  and  I  'm  sure  he  '11 
make  a  good  husband;  he's  so  kind  hearted.  Oh!  you 
ought  to  have  seen  how  kind  he  was  to  Jack  that  day  he 
brought  him  back ;  and  such  a  sight  as  Jack  was,  too  —  all 
dirt  and  grease !  Why,  it  took  Dinah  and  me  at  least  two 
hours  to  get  him  clean,  and  there  are  not  many  young 
gentlemen  that  would  be  so  patient  as  he  was.  I  never 
shall  forget  it  of  him." 

"Patient  as  who  was?"  said  Miss  Dorcas.  "I  believe 
Jack  was  the  last  nominative  case  in  that  sentence;  do 


WHAT   THEY   ALL   SAID   ABOUT   IT  405 

pray  compose  yourself,  Betsey,  and  don't  take  entire  leave 
of  your  senses." 

"I  mean  Mr.  Fellows  was  patient,  of  course,  you  know." 

"Well,  then,  do  take  a  little  pains  to  say  what  you 
mean,"  said  Miss  Dorcas. 

"Well,  don't  you  think  it  a  good  thing  —  and  were  you 
expecting  it  ?  " 

"So  far  as  I  know  the  parties,  it 's  as  good  a  thing  as 
engagements  in  general,"  said  Miss  Dorcas.  "They  have 
my  very  best  wishes." 

"  Well,  did  you  ever  think  it  would  come  about  ? " 

"No;  I  never  troubled  my  head  with  speculations  on 
what  plainly  is  none  of  my  concern,"  said  Miss  Dorcas. 

It  was  evident  that  Miss  Dorcas  was  on  the  highest  and 
most  serene  mountain-top  of  propriety  this  morning,  and 
all  her  words  and  actions  indicated  that  calm  superiority  to 
vulgar  curiosity  which,  in  her  view,  was  befitting  a  trained 
lady.  Perhaps  a  little  pique  that  Betsey  had  secured  such 
a  promising  bit  of  news  in  advance  of  herself  added  to  her 
virtuous  frigidity  of  demeanor.  We  are  all  mortal,  and 
the  best  of  us  are  apt  to  undervalue  what  we  did  not  our 
selves  originally  produce.  But  if  Miss  Dorcas  wished  in 
a  gentle  manner  to  remind  Mrs.  Betsey  that  she  was  be 
traying  too  much  of  an  inclination  for  gossip,  she  did  not 
succeed.  The  clock  of  time  had  gone  back  on  the  dial  of 
the  little  old  lady,  and  she  was  as  full  of  chatter  and 
detail  as  a  schoolgirl,  and  determined  at  any  rate  to  make 
the  most  of  her  incidents,  and  to  create  a  sensation  in  her 
sister's  mind  —  for  what  is  more  provoking  than  to  have 
people  sit  calm  and  unexcited  when  we  have  a  stimulating 
bit  of  news  to  tell  ?  It  is  an  evident  violation  of  Christian 
charity.  Mrs.  Betsey  now  drew  forth  her  next  card. 

"Oh,  and,  Dorcas!  you've  no  idea.  They've  been 
having  the  most  dreadful  time  over  there !  Miss  Alice  has 
had  the  greatest  escape !  The  most  wonderful  providence ! 


406  WE  AND  OUR   NEIGHBORS 

It  really  makes  my  blood  run  cold  to  think  of  it.  Don't 
you  think,  she  was  all  dressed  to  go  to  Mrs.  Wouvermans' 
party,  and  her  dress  caught  on  fire,  and  if  it  hadn't  been 
for  Mr.  '  Fellows'  presence  of  mind  she  might  have  been 
burned  to  death  —  really  burned  to  death !  Only  think  of 
it!" 

"You  don't  say  so!"  said  Miss  Dorcas,  who  now 
showed  excitement  enough  to  fully  satisfy  Mrs.  Betsey. 
"How  very  dreadful!  Why,  how  was  it?" 

"  Yes  —  she  was  passing  in  front  of  the  fire,  in  a  thin 
white  tarlatan,  made  very  full,  with  flounces,  and  it  was 
just  drawn  in  and  flashed  up  like  tinder.  Mr.  Fellows 
caught  the  cloth  from  the  table,  wrapped  her  in  it  and  laid 
her  on  the  sofa,  and  then  tore  and  beat  out  the  fire  with 
his  hands." 

"Dear  —  me!  dear  —  me!"  said  Miss  Dorcas,  "how 
dreadful!  But  he  did  just  the  right  thing." 

"Yes,  indeed;  you  ought  to  have  seen!  Mrs.  Hender 
son  showed  me  what  was  left  of  the  dress,  and  it  was  really 
awful  to  see !  I  could  not  help  thinking,  l  In  the  midst  of 
life  we  are  in  death. '  All  trimmed  up  with  scarlet  vel 
vet  and  bows,  and  just  hanging  in  rags  and  tatters,  where 
it  had  been  burned  and  torn  away !  I  never  saw  anything 
so  solemn  in  my  life." 

"A  narrow  escape,  certainly,"  said  Miss  Dorcas.  "And 
is  she  not  injured  at  all  ?  " 

"Nothing  to  speak  of,  only  a  few  slight  burns;  but 
poor  Mr.  Fellows  has  to  have  his  hands  bandaged  and 
dressed  every  day;  but  of  course  he  doesn't  mind  that 
since  he  has  saved  her  life.  But  just  think  of  it,  Dorcas, 
we  shall  have  two  weddings,  and  it  '11  make  two  more  visit 
ing  places.  I  'm  going  to  tell  Dinah  all  about  it,"  and  the 
little  woman  fled  to  the  kitchen,  with  Jack  at  her  heels, 
and  was  soon  heard  going  over  the  whole  story  again. 

Dinah's  effusion  and  sympathy,  in  fact,  were  the  final 


WHAT   THEY   ALL   SAID   ABOUT   IT  407 

refuge  of  Mrs.  Betsey  on  every  occasion,  whether  of  joy  or 
sorrow  or  perplexity  —  and  between  her  vigorous  exclama 
tions  and  loud  responses,  and  Jack's  running  commentary 
of  unrestrained  barking,  there  was  as  much  noise  over  the 
announcement  as  could  be  made  by  an  average  town  meet 
ing. 

Thus  were  the  tidings  received  across  the  way.  In  the 
Van  Arsdel  family,  Jim  was  already  an  established  favor 
ite.  Mr.  Van  Arsdel  always  liked  him  as  a  bright,  agree 
able  evening  visitor,  and,  now  that  he  had  acquired  a 
position  that  promised  a  fair  support,  there  was  no  oppo 
sition  on  his  part  to  overcome.  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel  was  one 
of  the  motherly,  complying  sort  of  women,  generally  de 
sirous  of  doing  what  the  next  person  to  her  wanted  her  to 
do;  and,  though  she  was  greatly  confused  by  remembering 
Alice's  decided  asseverations  that  "it  never  was  and  never 
would  be  anything,  and  that  Jim  was  not  at  all  the  person 
she  ever  should  think  of  marrying,"  yet,  since  it  was  evi 
dent  that  she  was  now  determined  upon  the  affair,  Mrs. 
Van  Arsdel  looked  at  it  on  the  bright  side. 

"After  all,  my  dear,"  she  said  to  her  spouse,  "if  I  must 
lose  both  my  daughters,  it 's  a  mercy  to  have  them  marry 
and  settle  down  here  in  New  York,  where  I  can  have  the 
comfort  of  them.  Jim  will  always  be  an  attentive  hus 
band  and  a  good  family  man.  I  saw  that  when  he  was 
helping  us  move;  but  I  'm  sure  I  don't  know  what  Maria 
will  say  now !  " 

"No  matter  what  Maria  says,  my  dear,"  said  Mr.  Van 
Arsdel.  "It  don't  make  one  hair  white  or  black.  It's 
time  you  were  emancipated  from  Maria." 

But  Aunt  Maria,  like  many  dreaded  future  evils,  proved 
less  formidable  on  this  occasion  than  had  been  feared.  The 
very  submissive  and  edifying  manner  in  which  Mr.  Jim 
Fellows  had  received  her  strictures  and  cautions  on  a  for 
mer  occasion,  and  the  profound  respect  he  had  shown  for 


408  WE   AND    OUR   NEIGHBORS 

her  opinion,  had  so  far  wrought  upon  her  as  to  make  her 
feel  that  it  was  really  a  pity  that  he  was  not  a  young  man 
of  established  fortune.  If  he  only  had  anything  to  live 
on,  why,  he  might  be  a  very  desirable  match;  and  so, 
when  he  had  a  good  position  and  salary,  he  stood  some 
inches  higher  in  her  esteem.  Besides  this,  there  was  an 
other  balm  which  distilled  resignation  in  the  cup  of  ac 
quiescence,  and  that  was  the  grand  chance  it  gave  her  to  say, 
"I  told  you  so."  How  dear  and  precious  this  privilege  is 
to  the  very  best  of  people,  we  need  not  insist.  There  are 
times  when  it  would  comfort  them,  if  all  their  dearest 
friends  were  destroyed,  to  be  able  to  say,  "I  told  you  so. 
It 's  just  as  I  always  predicted ! "  We  all  know  how 
Jonah,  though  not  a  pirate  or  a  cut-throat,  yet  wished 
himself  dead  because  a  great  city  was  not  destroyed,  when 
he  had  taken  the  trouble  to  say  it  wrould  be.  Now,  though 
Alice's  engagement  was  not  in  any  strict  sense  an  evil,  yet 
it  was  an  event  which  Aunt  Maria  had  always  foreseen, 
foretold,  and  insisted  on. 

So  when,  with  heart-sinkings  and  infinite  precautions, 
Mrs.  Van  Arsdel  had  communicated  the  news  to  her,  she 
was  rather  relieved  at  the  response  given,  with  a  toss  of 
the  head  and  a  vigorous  sniff:  "Oh,  that 's  no  news  to  me; 
it 's  just  what  I  have  foreseen  all  along  —  what  I  told  you 
was  coming  on,  and  you  would  n't  believe  it.  Now  I  hope 
all  of  you  will  see  that  I  was  right." 

"I  think,"  said  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel,  "that  it  was  Jim's 
presence  of  mind  in  saving  her  life  that  decided  Alice  at 
last.  She  always  liked  him;  but  I  don't  think  she  really 
loved  him  till  then." 

"Well,  of  course,  it  was  a  good  thing  that  there  was 
somebody  at  hand  who  had  sense  to  do  the  right  thing, 
when  girls  will  be  so  careless;  but  it  wasn't  that.  She 
meant  to  have  him  all  along;  and  I  knew  it,"  said  Aunt 
Maria.  "Well,  Jim  Fellows,  after  all,  isn't  the  worst 


WHAT   THEY   ALL   SAID   ABOUT   IT  409 

match  a  girl  could  make,  either,  now  that  he  has  some 
prospects  of  his  own  —  but,  at  any  rate,  it  has  turned  out 
just  as  I  said  it  would.  I  knew  she  'd  marry  him,  six 
months  ago,  just  as  well  as  I  know  it  now,  unless  you  and 
she  listened  to  my  advice  then.  So  now  all  we  have  to  do 
is  to  make  the  best  of  it.  You  've  got  two  weddings  011 
your  hands  now,  Kelly,  instead  of  one,  and  I  shall  do  all 
I  can  to  help  you.  I  was  out  all  day  yesterday  looking  at 
sheeting,  and  I  think  that  at  Shanks  &  Maynard's  is 
decidedly  the  firmest  and  the  cheapest,  and  I  ordered  three 
pieces  sent  home;  and  I  carried  back  the  napkins  to  Tag- 
gart's,  and  then  went  rambling  off  up  by  the  Park  to  find 
that  woman  that  does  marking." 

"I'm  sure,  Maria,  I  am  ever  so  much  obliged  to  you," 
said  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel. 

"Well,  I  hope  I'm  good  for  something.  Though  I'm 
not  fit  to  be  out;  I  've  such  a  dreadful  cold  in  my  head,  I 
can  hardly  see;  and  riding  in  these  New  York  omnibuses 
always  makes  it  worse." 

"Dear  Maria,  M7hy  will  you  expose  yourself  in  that 
way  1 " 

"Well,  somebody  's  got  to  do  it  —  and  your  judgment 
isn't  worth  a  fip,  Nelly.  That  sheeting  that  you  were 
thinking  of  taking  was  n't  half  so  good,  and  cost  six  cents 
a  yard  more.  I  couldn't  think  of  having  things  go  that 
way. " 

"But  I'm  sure  we  don't  any  of  us  want  you  to  make 
yourself  sick." 

"Oh,  I  sha'n't  be  sick.  I  may  suffer;  but  I  sha'n't 
give  up.  I  'm  not  one  of  the  kind.  If  you  had  the  cold 
in  your  head  that  I  have,  Nelly,  you  'd  be  in  bed,  with 
both  girls  nursing  you;  but  that  isn't  my  way.  I  keep 
up,  and  attend  to  things.  I  want  these  things  of  Angie's 
to  be  got  up  properly,  as  they  ought  to  be,  and  there  's 
nobody  to  do  it  but  me." 


410  WE  AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

And  little  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel,  used,  from  long  habit,  to 
be  thus  unceremoniously  snubbed,  dethroned,  deposed,  and 
set  down  hard  by  her  sister  when  in  full  career  of  labor  for 
her  benefit,  looked  meekly  into  the  fire,  and  comforted  her 
self  with  the  reflection  that  it  "was  just  like  Maria.  She 
always  talked  so;  but,  after  all,  she  was  a  good  soul,  and 
saved  her  worlds  of  trouble,  and  made  excellent  bargains 
for  her." 


CHAPTEK   XLVH 


THIS  article  of  faith  forms  a  part  of  the  profession  of  all 
Christendom,  is  solemnly  recited  every  Sunday  and  many 
week-days  in  the  services  of  all  Christian  churches  that 
have  a  liturgy,  whether  Roman  or  Greek  or  Anglican  or 
Lutheran,  and  may,  therefore,  bid  fair  to  pass  for  a  funda 
mental  doctrine  of  Christianity. 

Yet,  if  narrowly  looked  into,  it  is  a  proposition  under 
which  there  are  more  heretics  and  unbelievers  than  all  the 
other  doctrines  of  religion  put  together. 

Mrs.  Maria  Wouvermans,  standing,  like  a  mother  in 
Israel,  in  the  most  eligible  pew  of  Dr.  Gushing' s  church, 
has  just  pronounced  these  words  with  all  the  rest  of  the 
Apostles'  Creed,  which  she  has  recited  devoutly  twice  a 
day  every  Sunday  for  forty  years  or  more.  She  always 
recited  her  creed  in  a  good,  strong,  clear  voice,  designed 
to  rebuke  the  indolent  or  fastidious  who  only  mumbled  or 
whispered,  and  made  a  deep  reverence  in  the  proper  place 
at  the  name  of  Jesus;  and  somehow  it  seemed  to  feel  as 
if  she  were  witnessing  a  good  confession,  and  were  part  and 
parcel  with  the  protesting  saints  and  martyrs  that,  in  blue 
and  red  and  gold,  were  shining  down  upon  her  through 
the  painted  windows.  This  solemn  standing  up  in  her 
best  bonnet  and  reciting  her  Christian  faith  every  Sunday 
was  a  weekly  testimony  against  infidelity  and  schism  and 
lax  doctrines  of  all  kinds,  and  the  good  lady  gave  it  with 
unfaltering  regularity.  Nothing  would  have  shocked  her 
more  than  to  have  it  intimated  to  her  that  she  did  not 


412  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

believe  the  articles  of  her  own  faith;  and  yet,  if  there  was 
anything  in  the  world  that  Mrs.  Maria  Wouvermans  prac 
tically  didn't  believe  in,  and  didn't  mean  to  believe  in,  it 
was  "the  forgiveness  of  sins.'7 

As  long  as  people  did  exactly  right,  she  had  fellowship 
and  sympathy  with  them.  When  they  did  wrong,  she 
wished  to  have  nothing  more  to  do  with  them.  Nay,  she 
seemed  to  consider  it  a  part  of  public  justice  and  good 
morals  to  clear  her  skirts  from  all  contact  with  sinners. 
If  she  heard  of  penalties  and  troubles  that  befell  evil-doers, 
it  was  with  a  face  of  grim  satisfaction.  "It  serves  them 
right  —  just  what  they  ought  to  expect.  I  don't  pity  them 
in  the  least,"  were  familiar  phrases  with  her.  If  anybody 
did  her  an  injury,  crossed  her  path,  showed  her  disrespect 
or  contumely,  she  seemed  to  feel  as  free  and  full  a  liberty 
of  soul  to  hate  them  as  if  the  Christian  religion  had  never 
been  heard  of.  And,  in  particular,  for  the  sins  of  women, 
Aunt  Maria  had  the  true  ingrain  Saxon  ferocity  which 
Sharon  Turner  describes  as  characteristic  of  the  original 
Saxon  female  in  the  earlier  days  of  English  history,  when 
the  unchaste  woman  was  pursued  and  beaten,  starved  and 
frozen,  from  house  to  house,  by  the  merciless  justice  of 
her  sisters. 

It  is  the  same  spirit  that  has  come  down  through  Eng 
lish  law  and  literature,  and  shows  itself  in  the  old  popular 
ballad  of  "Jane  Shore,"  where,  without  a  word  of  pity,  it 
is  recorded  how  Jane  Shore,  the  king's  mistress,  after  his 
death,  first  being  made  to  do  public  penance  in  a  white 
sheet,  was  thereafter  turned  out  to  be  frozen  and  starved 
to  death  in  the  streets,  and  died  miserably  in  a  ditch,  from 
that  time  called  Shoreditch.  A  note  tells  us  that  there 
wras  one  man  who,  moved  by  pity,  at  one  time  sheltered  the 
poor  creature  and  gave  her  food,  for  which  he  was  thrown 
into  prison,  to  the  great  increase  of  her  sorrow  and  misery. 

It  was  in  a  somewhat  similar  spirit  that  Mrs.  Wouver- 


"IN  THE  FORGIVENESS   OF   SINS  "  413 

mans  regarded  all  sinning  women.  Her  uniform  ruling  in 
such  cases  was  that  they  were  to  be  let  alone  by  all  decent 
people,  and  that  if  they  fell  into  misery  and  want,  it  was 
only  just  what  they  deserved,  and  she  was  glad  of  it. 
AYliat  business  had  they  to  behave  so  ?  In  her  view,  all 
efforts  to  introduce  sympathy  and  mercy  into  prison  disci 
pline  —  all  forbearance  and  painstaking  with  the  sinful 
and  lost  in  all  places  in  society  —  was  just  so  much  encour 
agement  given  to  the  criminal  classes,  and  one  of  the  lax 
humanitarian  tendencies  of  the  age.  It  is  quite  certain 
that  had  Mrs.  Wouvermans  been  a  guest  in  old  times  at  a 
certain  Pharisee's  house,  where  the  Master  allowed  a  fallen 
woman  to  kiss  His  feet,  she  would  have  joined  in  saying, 
"If  this  man  were  a  prophet  he  would  have  known  what 
manner  of  woman  this  is  that  toucheth  him,  for  she  is  a 
sinner."  There  was  certainly  a  marked  difference  of  spirit 
between  her  and  that  Jesus  to  whom  she  bowed  so  carefully 
whenever  she  repeated  the  Creed. 

On  this  particular  Sunday,  Eva  had  come  to  church  with 
her  aunt,  and  was  going  to  dine  with  her,  intent  on  a  mis 
sion  of  Christian  diplomacy.  Some  weeks  had  now  passed 
since  she  left  Maggie  in  the  mission  retreat,  and  it  was 
the  belief  of  the  matron  there,  and  the  attending  clergy 
man,  that  a  change  had  taken  place  in  her,  so  radical  and 
so  deep  that,  if  now  some  new  and  better  course  of  life 
were  opened  to  her,  she  might,  under  careful  guidance,  "be 
come  a  useful  member  of  society.  Whatever  views  modern 
skepticism  may  entertain  in  regard  to  what  is  commonly 
called  the  preaching  of  the  gospel,  no  sensible  person  con 
versant  with  actual  facts  can  help  acknowledging  that  it 
does  produce  in  some  cases  the  phenomenon  called  conver 
sion,  and  that  conversion,  when  real,  is  a  solution  of  all 
difficulties  in  our  days  as  it  was  in  those  of  the  first  apostles. 

The  first  Christians  were  gathered  from  the  dregs  of 
society,  and  the  Master  did  not  fear  to  say  to  the  Phari- 


414  WE   AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

sees,  "The  publicans  and  harlots  go  into  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  before  you ; "  and  St.  Paul  addresses  those  who  he 
says  had  been  thieves  and  drunkards  and  revilers  and  extor 
tioners,  with  the  words,  "  Ye  are  washed;  ye  are  sanctified; 
ye  are  justified  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus  and  by  the 
spirit  of  God."  It  is  on  the  power  of  the  Divine  spirit  to 
effect  such  changes,  even  in  the  most  hopeless  and  forlorn 
subjects,  that  Christians  of  every  name  depend  for  success; 
and  by  this  faith  such  places  as  the  Home  for  the  Fallen 
are  undertaken  and  kept  up. 

What  people  look  for,  and  labor  for,  as  is  proved  by  all 
experience,  is  more  liable  to  happen  than  what  they  do 
not  expect  and  do  not  labor  for.  The  experiment  of  Mr. 
James  was  attended  by  many  marked  and  sudden  instances 
of  conversion  and  permanent  change  of  character.  Maggie 
had  been  entrapped  and  drawn  in  by  Mother  Moggs  in  one 
of  those  paroxysms  of  bitter  despair  which  burned  in  her 
bosom,  when  she  saw,  as  she  thought,  every  respectable 
door  of  life  closed  upon  her  and  the  way  of  virtue  shut  up 
beyond  return.  When  she  thought  how,  while  she  was 
cast  out  as  utterly  beyond  hope,  the  man  who  had  betrayed 
her  and  sinned  with  her  was  respected,  flattered,  rich, 
caressed,  and  joined  in  marriage  to  a  pure  and  virtuous 
wife,  a  blind  and  keen  sense  of  injustice  awoke  every  evil 
or  revengeful  passion  within  her.  "If  they  won't  let  me 
do  good,  I  can  do  mischief,"  she  thought,  and  she  was  now 
ready  to  do  all  she  could  to  work  misery  and  ruin  for  a 
world  that  would  give  her  no  place  to  do  better.  Mother 
Moggs  saw  Maggie's  brightness  and  smartness,  and  the 
remains  of  her  beauty.  She  flattered  and  soothed  her.  To 
say  the  truth,  Mother  Moggs  was  by  no  means  all  devil. 
She  had  large  remains  of  that  motherly  nature  which  is 
common  to  warm-blooded  women  of  easy  virtue.  She  took 
Maggie's  part,  was  indignant  at  her  wrongs,  and  offered 
her  a  shelter  and  a  share  in  her  business.  Maggie  was  to 


"  IX   THE   FORGIVENESS   OF   SINS  "  415 

tend  her  bar;  and  by  her  talents  and  her  good  looks  and 
attractions  Mother  Moggs  hoped  to  double  her  liquor  sales. 
What  if  it  did  ruin  the  men  1  What  if  it  was  selling  them 
ruin,  madness,  beggary  —  so  much  the  better ;  had  they 
not  ruined  her? 

If  Maggie  had  been  left  to  her  own  ways,  she  might 
have  been  the  ruin  of  many.  It  was  the  Christ  in  the 
heart  of  a  woman  who  had  the  Christian  love  and  Christian 
courage  to  go  after  her  and  seek  for  her  that  brought  to 
her  salvation.  The  invisible  Christ  must  be  made  known 
through  human  eyes;  he  must  speak  through  a  voice  of 
earthly  love,  and  a  human  hand  inspired  by  his  spirit  must 
be  reached  forth  to  save. 

The  sight  of  Eva's  pure,  sweet  face  in  that  den  of  wick 
edness,  the  tears  of  pity  in  her  eyes,  the  imploring  tones 
of  her  voice,  had-  produced  an  electric  revulsion  in  Maggie's 
excitable  nature.  She  was  not,  then,  forsaken:  she  was 
cared  for,  loved,  followed  even  into  the  wilderness,  by 
one  so  far  above  her  in  rank  and  station.  It  was  an  illus 
tration  of  what  Christian  love  was,  which  made  it  possible 
to  believe  in  the  love  of  Christ.  The  hymns,  the  prayers, 
that  spoke  of  hope  and  salvation,  had  a  vivid  meaning  in 
the  light  of  this  interpretation.  The  enthusiasm  of  grati 
tude  that  arose  first  towards  Eva,  overflowed  and  bore  the 
soul  higher  towards  a  Heavenly  Friend. 

Maggie  was  now  longing  to  come  back  and  prove  by  her 
devotion  and  obedience  her  true  repentance,  and  Eva  had 
decided  to  take  her  again.  With  two  weddings  impending 
in  the  family,  she  felt  that  Maggie's  skill  with  the  needle 
and  her  facility  in  matters  pertaining  to  the  female  toilet 
might  do  good  service,  and  might  give  her  the  sense  of 
usefulness  —  the  strength  that  comes  from  something  really 
accomplished. 

Her  former  experience  made  her  careful,  however,  of 
those  sore  and  sensitive  conditions  which  attend  the  return 


416  WE  AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

to  virtue  in  those  who  have  sinned,  and  which  are  often 
severest  where  there  is  the  most  moral  vitality,  and  she 
was  anxious  to  prevent  any  repetition  on  Aunt  Maria's 
part  of  former  unwise  proceedings.  All  the  other  habitues 
of  the  house  partook  of  her  own  feeling;  Alice  and  Angie 
were  warmly  interested  for  the  poor  girl;  and  if  Aunt 
Maria  could  be  brought  to  tolerate  the  arrangement,  the 
danger  of  a  sudden  domiciliary  visit  from  her  attended  with 
inflammatory  results  might  be  averted. 

So  Eva  was  very  sweet  and  very  persuasive  in  her  man 
ner  to-day,  for  Aunt  Maria  had  been  devoting  herself  so 
entirely  to  the  family  service  during  the  few  weeks  past, 
that  she  felt  in  some  sort  under  a  debt  of  obligation  to  her. 
The  hardest  person  in  the  world  to  manage  is  a  sincere, 
willful,  pig-headed,  pertinacious  friend  who  will  insist  on 
doing  you  all  sorts  of  kindnesses  in  a  way  that  plagues 
about  as  much  as  it  helps  you. 

But  Eva  was  the  diplomatist  of  the  family;  the  one 
with  the  precise  mixture  of  the  suaviter  in  modo  with  the 
fortiter  in  re.  She  had  hitherto  carried  her  points  with 
the  good  lady  in  a  way  that  gave  her  great  advantage,  for 
Aunt  Maria  was  one  of  those  happily  self-complacent  peo 
ple  who  do  not  fail  to  arrogate  to  themselves  the  credit  of 
all  the  good  things  that  they  have  not  been  able,  after  the 
most  strenuous  efforts,  to  hinder,  and  Eva's  housekeeping 
and  social  successes,  so  far,  were  quite  a  feather  in  her  cap. 
So,  after  dinner,  Eva  began  with :  — 

"Well,  you  know,  Aunt  Maria,  what  with  these  two 
weddings  coming  on,  there  is  to  be  a  terrible  pressure  of 
work  —  both  coming  the  week  after  Easter,  you  see. 
So,"  she  added  quickly,  "I  think  it  quite  lucky  that  I 
have  found  Maggie  and  got  her  back  again,  for  she  is  one 
of  the  quickest  and  best  seamstresses  that  I  know  of." 
Aunt  Maria's  brow  suddenly  darkened.  Every  trace  of 
good  humor  vanished  from  her  face  as  she  said :  — 


"IN   THE   FORGIVENESS   OF   SIXS  "  417 

"Now  do  tell  me,  Eva,  if  you  are  going  to  be  such  a 
fool,  when  you  were  once  fairly  quit  of  that  girl,  to  bring 
her  back  into  your  family. " 

"  Yes,  aunt,  I  thought  it  my  Christian  duty  to  take  care 
of  her,  and  see  that  she  did  not  go  to  utter  ruin." 

"I  don't  know  what  you  mean,"  said  Aunt  Maria.  "I 
should  say  she  had  gone  there  now.  Do  you  think  it  your 
duty  to  turn  your  house  into  a  Magdalen  asylum  ? " 

"No,  I  do  not;  but  I  do  think  it  is  our  duty  to  try  to 
help  and  save  this  one  girl  whom  we  know  —  who  is  truly 
repentant,  and  who  wants  to  do  well." 

"Repentant!"  said  Aunt  Maria  in  a  scornful  tone. 
"Don't  tell  me.  I  know  their  tricks,  and  you '11  just  be 
imposed  on  and  get  yourself  into  trouble.  I  know  the 
world,  and  I  know  all  about  it. " 

Eva  now  rose  and  played  her  last  card.  "  Aunt  Maria, " 
she  said,  "you  profess  to  be  a  Christian  and  to  follow  the 
Saviour  who  came  to  seek  and  save  the  lost,  and  I  don't 
think  you  do  right  to  treat  with  such  scorn  a  poor  girl  that 
is  trying  to  do  better." 

"It's  pretty  well  of  you,  miss,  to  lecture  me  in  this 
style!  Trying  to  do  better!"  said  Aunt  Maria.  "Then 
what  did  she  go  off  for,  when  she  was  at  your  house  and 
you  were  doing  all  you  could  for  her  1  It  was  just  that 
she  wanted  to  go  to  the  bad." 

"She  went  off,  Aunt  Maria,"  said  Eva,  "because  she 
overheard  all  you  said  about  her,  the  day  you  were  at  my 
house.  She  heard  you  advising  me  to  send  her  mother 
away  on  her  account,  and  saying  that  she  was  a  disgrace 
to  me.  No  wonder  she  ran  off." 

"  Well,  serves  her  right  for  listening !  Listeners  never 
hear  any  good  of  themselves,"  said  Aunt  Maria. 

"Now,  aunty,"  said  Eva,  "nobody  has  more  respect  for 
your  good  qualities  than  I  have,  or  more  sense  of  what 
we  all  owe  you  for  your  kindness  to  us;  but  I  must  tell 


418  WE   AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

you  fairly  that,  now  I  anr  married,  you  must  not  come  to 
my  house  to  dictate  about  or  interfere  with  my  family 
arrangements.  You  must  understand  that  Harry  and  I 
manage  these  matters  ourselves  and  will  not  allow  any  in 
terference;  and  I  tell  you  now  that  Maggie  is  to  be  at  our 
house,  and  under  my  care,  and  I  request  that  you  will  not 
come  there  to  say  or  do  anything  which  may  hurt  her 
mother's  feelings  or  hers.'7 

"Mighty  fine,"  said  Aunt  Maria,  rising  in  wrath,  "when 
it  has  come  to  this,  that  servants  are  preferred  before  me ! " 

"It  has  not  come  to  that,  Aunt  Maria.  It  has  simply 
come  to  this:  that  I  am  to  be  sole  mistress  in  my  o\vn 
family,  and  sole  judge  of  what  it  is  right  and  proper  to  do; 
and  when  I  need  your  advice  I  shall  ask  it;  but  I  don't 
want  you  to  offer  it  unless  I  do." 

Having  made  this  concluding  speech  while  she  was  put 
ting  on  her  bonnet  and  shawl,  Eva  now  cheerfully  wished  her 
aunt  good-afternoon,  and  made  the  best  of  her  way  downstairs. 

"I  don't  see,  Eva,  how  you  could  get  up  the  courage  to 
face  your  aunt  down  in  that  way,"  said  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel, 
to  whom  Eva  related  the  interview. 

"Dear  mamma,  it  '11  do  her  good.  She  will  be  as  sweet 
as  a  rose  after  the  first  week  of  indignation.  Aunt  Maria 
is  a  sensible  woman,  after  all,  and  resigns  herself  to  the 
inevitable.  She  worries  and  hectors  you,  my  precious 
mammy,  because  you  will  let  her.  If  you  'd  show  a  brave 
face,  she  wouldn't  do  it;  but  it  isn't  in  you,  you  poor, 
lovely  darling,  and  so  she  just  preys  upon  you;  but  Harry 
and  I  are  resolved  to  make  her  stand  and  give  the  counter 
sign  when  she  comes  to  our  camp." 

And  it  is  a  fact  that,  a  week  after,  Aunt  Maria  spent  a 
day  with  Eva  in  the  balmiest  state  of  grace,  and  made  no 
allusion  whatever  to  the  conversation  above  cited.  No 
thing  operates  so  healthfully  on  such  moral  constitutions 
as  a  good  dose  of  certainty. 


CHAPTER   XLVIII 

THE    PEARL    CROSS 

EVERY  thoughtful  person  who  exercises  the  least  super 
vision  over  what  goes  on  within  is  conscious  of  living  two 
distinct  lives  —  the  outward  and  the  inward.  The  external 
life  is  positive,  visible,  definable;  easily  made  the  subject 
of  conversation.  The  inner  life  is  shy,  retiring,  most  diffi 
cult  to  be  expressed  in  words,  often  inexplicable,  even  to 
the  subject  of  it,  yet  no  less  a  positive  reality  than  the 
outward. 

We  have  not  succeeded  in  the  picture  of  our  Eva  unless 
we  have  shown  her  to  have  one  of  those  sensitive  moral 
organizations,  whose  nature  it  is  to  reflect  deeply,  to  feel 
intensely,  and  to  aspire  after  a  high  moral  ideal.  If  we 
do  not  mistake  the  age  we  live  in,  the  perplexities  and 
anxieties  of  such  natures  form  a  very  large  item  in  our 
modern  life. 

It  is  said  that  the  Christian  religion  is  losing  its  hold 
on  society.  On  the  contrary,  we  believe  there  never  was 
a  time  when  faith  in  Christianity  was  so  deep  and  all-per 
vading,  and  when  it  was  working  in  so  many  minds  as  a 
disturbing  force.  The  main  thing  which  is  now  perplex 
ing  modern  society  is  the  effort  which  is  making  to  reduce 
the  teachings  of  the  New  Testament  to  actual  practice  in 
life,  and  to  regulate  society  by  them.  There  is  no  skepti 
cism  as  to  the  ends  sought  by  Jesus  in  human  life.  No 
body  doubts  that  love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  law,  and  that 
to  do  as  we  would  be  done  by,  applied  universally,  would 
bring  back  the  golden  age,  if  ever  such  ages  were. 


420  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

But  the  problem  that  meets  the  Christian  student,  and 
the  practical  person  who  means  to  live  the  Christian  life, 
is  the  problem  of  redemption  and  of  self-sacrifice.  In  a 
world  where  there  is  always  ruin  and  misery,  where  the 
inexperienced  are  ensnared  and  the  blind  misled,  and  where 
fatal  and  inexorable  penalties  follow  every  false  step,  there 
must  be  a  band  of  redeemers,  seekers,  and  savers  of  the 
lost.  There  must  be  those  who  sacrifice  ease,  luxury,  and 
leisure,  to  labor  for  the  restoration  of  the  foolish  and 
wicked  who  have  sold  their  birthright  and  lost  their  inher 
itance;  and  here  is  just  the  problem  that  our  age  and  day 
present  to  the  thoughtful  person  who,  having  professed,  in 
whatever  church  or  creed,  to  be  a  Christian,  wishes  to  make 
a  reality  of  that  profession. 

The  night  that  Eva  had  spent  in  visiting  the  worst  parts 
of  New  York  had  been  to  her  a  new  revelation  of  that 
phase  of  paganism  which  exists  in  our  modern  city  life, 
within  sound  of  hundreds  of  church  bells  of  every  denomi 
nation.  She  saw  authorized  as  a  regular  trade,  and  pro 
tected  by  law,  the  selling  of  that  poisoned  liquor  which 
brings  on  insanity  worse  than  death;  which  engenders 
idiocy,  and  the  certainty  of  vicious  propensities  in  the 
brain  of  the  helpless  unborn  infant;  which  is  the  source  of 
all  the  poverty,  and  more  than  half  the  crime,  that  fills 
almshouses  and  prisons,  and  of  untold  miseries  and  agonies 
to  thousands  of  families.  She  saw  woman  degraded  as  the 
minister  of  sin  and  shame;  the  fallen  and  guilty  Eve,  for 
ever  plucking  and  giving  to  Adam  the  forbidden  fruit 
whose  mortal  taste  brings  death  into  the  world;  and  her 
heart  had  been  stirred  by  the  sight  of  those  multitudes  of 
poor  ruined  wrecks  of  human  beings,  men  and  women,  that 
she  had  seen  crowding  in  to  that  midnight  supper,  and  by 
the  earnest  pleadings  of  faith  and  love  that  she  had  heard 
in  the  good  man's  prayers  for  them.  She  recalled  his 
simple  faith,  his  undaunted  courage  in  thus  maintaining 


THE   PEARL  CROSS  421 

this  forlorn  hope  in  so  hopeless  a  region,  and  she  could  not 
rest  satisfied  with  herself,  doing  nothing  to  help. 

In  talking  with  Mr.  James  on  his  prospects,  he  had  said 
that  he  very  much  wished  to  enlarge  this  Home  so  as  to 
put  there  some  dormitories  for  the  men  who  were  willing 
to  take  the  pledge  to  abandon  drinking,  where  they  could 
find  shelter  and  care  until  some  kind  of  work  could  be 
provided  for  them.  He  stated  further  that  he  wished  to 
connect  with  the  enterprise  a  farm  in  the  country  where 
work  could  be  found  for  both  men  and  women,  of  a  kind 
which  would  be  remunerative,  and  which  might  prove  self- 
supporting. 

Eva  reflected  with  herself  whether  she  had  anything  to 
give  or  to  do  for  a  purpose  so  sacred.  Their  income  was 
already  subject  to  a  strict  economy.  The  little  elegances 
and  adornments  of  her  house  were  those  that  are  furnished 
by  thought  and  care  rather  than  by  money.  Even  with 
the  most  rigorous  self -scrutiny,  Eva  could  not  find  fault 
with  the  home  philosophy  by  which  their  family  life  had 
been  made  attractive  and  delightful,  because  she  said  and 
felt  that  her  house  had  been  a  ministry  to  others.  It  had 
helped  to  make  others  stronger,  more  cheerful,  happier. 

But  when  she  brought  Maggie  away  from  the  Home,  she 
longed  to  send  back  some  helpful  token  to  those  earnest 
laborers.  On  revising  her  possessions,  she  remembered 
that,  once,  in  the  days  when  she  was  a  rich  and  rather 
self-indulgent  daughter  of  luxury,  she  had  spent  the  whole 
of  one  quarter's  allowance  in  buying  for  herself  a  pearl 
cross.  It  cost  her  not  even  a  sacrifice,  for  when  with  a 
kiss  or  two  she  confessed  her  extravagance  to  her  father, 
he  only  pinched  her  cheek  playfully,  told  her  not  to  do  so 
again,  and  gave  a  check  for  the  amount.  There  it  lies,  at 
this  moment,  in  Eva's  hands;  and  as  she  turns  it  abstract 
edly  round  and  round,  and  marks  the  play  of  light  on  the 
beautiful  pearls,  she  thinks  earnestly  what  that  cross  means, 


422  WE  AND   OUK   NEIGHBORS 

and  wonders  that  she  should  ever  have  worn  it  as  a  mere 
bauble. 

Does  it  not  mean  that  man's  most  generous  Friend,  the 
highest,  the  purest,  the  sweetest  nature  that  ever  visited 
this  earth,  was  agonized,  tortured,  forsaken,  and  left  to 
bleed  life  away,  unpitied  and  unrelieved,  for  love  of  us 
and  of  all  sinning,  suffering  humanity  1  Suddenly  the 
words  came  with  overpowering  force  to  her  mind:  "He 
died  for  all,  that  they  which  live  should  not  henceforth 
live  unto  themselves." 

Immediately  she  resolved  that  she  would  give  this  cross 
to  the  sacred  work  of  saving  the  lost.  She  resolved  to 
give  it  secretly  —  without  the  knowledge  even  of  her  hus 
band.  The  bauble  was  something  personal  to  herself  that 
never  would  be  missed  or  inquired  for,  and  she  felt  about 
such  an  offering  that  reserve  and  sacredness  which  is  proper 
to  natures  of  great  moral  delicacy.  With  the  feeling  she 
had  at  this  moment,  it  was  as  much  an  expression  of  per 
sonal  loyalty  and  devotion  to  Jesus  Christ  as  was  the 
precious  alabaster  vase  of  Mary.  It  satisfied,  moreover, 
a  kind  of  tender,  vague  remorse  that  she  had  often  felt; 
as  if,  in  her  wedded  happiness  and  her  quiet  home,  she 
were  too  blessed,  and  had  more  than  her  share  of  happi 
ness  in  a  world  where  there  were  such  sufferings  and  sor 
rows. 

She  had  always  had  a  longing  to  do  something  towards 
the  world's  work,  and,  if  nothing  more,  to  be  a  humble 
helper  of  the  brave  and  heroic  spirits  who  press  on  in  the 
front  ranks  of  this  fight  for  the  good. 

She  did  not  wish  to  be  thanked  or  praised,  as  if  the 
giving  up  of  such  a  toy  for  such  a  cause  were  a  sacrifice 
worth  naming;  for,  in  the  mood  that  she  was  in,  it  was  no 
sacrifice  —  it  was  a  relief  to  an  over-charged  feeling,  an  act 
of  sacramental  union  between  her  soul  and  the  Saviour 
who  gave  himself  wholly  for  the  lost.  So  she  put  the 


THE    PEAKL   CEOSS  423 

velvet  case  in  its  box,   and  left  it  at  Mr.  James's  door, 
with  the  following  little  note :  — 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  Ever  since  that  most  sad  evening 
when  I  went  with  you  in  your  work  of  mercy  to  those 
unhappy  people,  I  have  been  thinking  of  what  I  saw,  and 
wishing  I  could  do  something  to  help  you.  You  say  that 
you  do  not  solicit  aid  except  from  the  dear  Father  who  is 
ever  near  to  those  that  are  trying  to  do  such  work  as  this; 
yet,  as  long  as  he  is  ever  near  to  Christian  hearts,  he  will 
inspire  them  with  desires  to  help  in  a  cause  so  wholly 
Christ-like.  I  send  you  this  ornament,  which  was  bought 
in  days  when  I  thought  little  of  its  sacred  meaning.  Sell 
it,  and  let  the  avails  go  towards  enlarging  your  Home  for 
those  poor  people  who  find  no  place  for  repentance  in  the 
world.  I  would  rather  you  would  tell  nobody  from  whom 
it  comes.  It  is  something  wholly  my  own;  it  is  a  relief 
to  offer  it,  to  help  a  little  in  so  good  a  work,  and  I  cer 
tainly  shall  not  forget  to  pray  for  your  success. 

Yours,  very  truly,  E.  H. 

P.  S.  —  I  am  very  happy  to  be  able  to  say  that  poor 
M.  seems  indeed  a  changed  creature.  She  is  gentle, 
quiet,  and  humble;  and  is  making,  in  our  family,  many 
friends. 

I  feel  hopeful  that  there  is  a  future  for  her,  and  that 
the  dear  Saviour  has  done  for  her  what  no  human  being 
could  do. 

We  have  seen  the  question  raised  lately  in  a  religious 
paper,  whether  the  sacrifice  of  personal  ornaments  for 
benevolent  objects  was  not  obligatory;  and  we  have  seen 
the  right  to  retain  these  small  personal  luxuries  defended 
with  earnestness.  To  us,  it  seems  an  unfortunate  mode  of 
putting  a  very  sacred  subject. 

The  Infinite  Saviour,  in  whose  hands  all  the  good  works 


424  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

of  the  world  are  moving,  is  rich.  The  treasures  of  the 
world  are  his.  He  is  as  able  now  as  he  was  when  on  earth 
to  bid  us  cast  in  our  line  and  find  a  piece  of  silver  in  the 
mouth  of  the  first  fish.  Our  gifts  are  only  valuable  to  him 
for  what  they  express  in  us.  Had  Mary  not  shed  the 
precious  balm  upon  his  head,  she  would  not  have  been 
reproved  for  the  omission ;  yet  the  exaltation  of  love  which 
so  expressed  itself  was  appreciated  and  honored  by  him. 
It  is  written,  too,  that  he  looked  upon  and  loved  the  young 
man  who  had  not  yet  attained  to  the  generous  enthusiasm 
that  is  willing  to  sacrifice  all  for  suffering  humanity. 

Religious  offerings,  to  have  value  in  his  sight,  must  be 
like  the  gifts  of  lovers,  not  extorted  by  conscience,  but  by 
the  divine  necessity  which  finds  relief  in  giving.  He  can 
wait,  as  mothers  do,  till  we  outgrow  our  love  of  toys  and 
come  to  feel  the  real  sacredness  and  significance  of  life. 
The  toy  which  is  dear  to  childhood  will  be  easily  surren 
dered  in  the  nobler  years  of  maturity. 

But  Eva's  was  a  nature  so  desirous  of  sympathy  that 
whatever  dwelt  on  her  mind  overflowed  first  or  last  into 
the  minds  of  her  friends;  and,  an  evening  or  two  after  her 
visit  to  the  mission  home,  she  told  the  whole  story  at  her 
fireside  to  Dr.  Campbell,  St.  John,  and  Angie,  Bolton, 
Jim,  and  Alice,  who  were  all  dining  with  her.  Eva  had 
two  or  three  objects  in  this.  In  the  first  place,  she  wanted 
to  touch  the  nerve  of  real  Christian  unity  which  she  felt 
existed  between  the  heart  of  St.  John  and  that  of  every 
true  Christian  worker  —  that  same  Christian  unity  that 
associated  the  Puritan  apostle  Eliot  with  the  Roman  Cath 
olic  missionaries  of  Canada.  She  wished  him  to  see  in 
a  Methodist  minister  the  same  faith,  the  same  moral  hero 
ism  which  he  had  so  warmly  responded  to  in  the  ritualistic 
mission  of  St.  George,  and  which  was  his  moral  ideal  in 
his  own  work. 

She  wished  to  show  Dr.   Campbell  the  pure  and  simple 


THE   PEARL   CROSS  425 

faith  in  God  and  prayer  by  which  so  effective  a  work  of 
humanity  had  already  been  done  for  a  class  so  hopeless. 

"It's  all  very  well,"  he  said,  "and  I'm  glad,  if  any 
body  can  do  it;  but  I  don't  believe  prayer  has  anything  to 
do  with  it." 

"Well,  I  do,"  said  Bolton  energetically.  "I  would  n't 
think  life  worth  having  another  minute,  if  I  didn't  think 
there  was  a  God  who  would  stand  by  a  man  whose  whole 
life  was  devoted  to  work  like  this." 

"Well,"  said  Dr.  Campbell,  "it  isn't,  after  all,  an  appeal 
to  God;  it's  an  appeal  to  human  nature.  Nobody  that 
has  a  heart  in  him  can  see  such  a  work  doing  and  not  want 
to  help  it.  Your  minister  takes  one  and  another  to  see  his 
Home,  and  says  nothing,  and,  by  and  by,  the  money  comes 
in." 

"But  in  the  beginning,"  said  Eva,  "he  had  no  money, 
and  nothing  to  show  to  anybody.  He  was  going  to  do  a 
work  that  nobody  believed  in,  among  people  that  everybody 
thought  so  hopeless  that  it  was  money  thrown  away  to  help 
him.  To  whom  could  he  go  but  God?  He  went  and 
asked  Him  to  help  him,  and  began,  and  has  been  helped 
day  by  day  ever  since;  and  I  believe  God  did  help  him. 
What  is  the  use  of  believing  in  God  at  all,  if  we  don't 
believe  that  ?  " 

"Well,"  said  Jim,  "I  'm  not  much  on  theology,  but  we 
newspaper  fellows  get  a  considerable  stock  of  facts,  first 
and  last;  and  I  've  looked  through  this  sort  of  thing,  and 
I  believe  in  it.  A  man  don't  go  on  doing  a  business  of 
six  or  seven  or  eight  thousand  a  year  on  prayer,  unless 
prayer  amounts  to  something;  and  I  know,  first  and  last, 
the  expenses  of  that  concern  can't  be  less  than  that." 

"Well,"  said  Harry,  "we  have  a  lasting  monument  in 
the  great  orphan  house  of  Halle  —  a  whole  city  square  of 
solid  stone  buildings.  I  have  stood  in  the  midst  of  them, 
and  they  were  all  built  by  one  man,  without  fortune  of  his 


426  WE   AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

own,  who  has  left  us  his  written  record  how,  day  by  day, 
as  expenses  thickened,  he  went  to  God  and  asked  for  his 
supplies,  and  found  them." 

"But  I  maintain,"  said  Dr.  Campbell,  "that  his  appeal 
was  to  human  nature.  People  found  out  what  he  was 
doing,  their  sympathies  were  moved,  and  they  sent  him 
help.  The  very  sight  of  such  a  work  is  an  application." 

"I  don't  think  that  theory  accounts  for  the  facts,"  said 
Bolton.  "Admitting  that  there  is  a  God  who  is  near 
every  human  heart  in  its  most  secret  retirement,  who 
knows  the  most  hidden  moods,  the  most  obscure  springs 
of  action,  how  can  you  prove  that  this  God  did  not  inspire 
the  thoughts  of  sympathy  and  purposes  of  help  there 
recorded?  For  we  have  in  this  Franke's  journal,  year 
after  year,  records  of  help  coming  in  when  it  was  wanted, 
having  been  asked  for  of  God,  and  obtained  with  as  much 
regularity  and  certainty  as  if  checks  had  been  drawn  on  a 
banker. " 

"Well,"  said  Dr.  Campbell,  "do  you  suppose  that,  if 
I  should  now  start  to  build  a  hospital  without  money,  and 
pray  every  week  for  funds  to  settle  with  my  workmen,  it 
would  come  1  " 

"No,  Doctor,  you're  not  the  kind  of  fellow  that  such 
things  happen  to,"  said  Jim,  "nor  am  I." 

"It  supposes  an  exceptional  nature,"  said  Bolton,  "an 
utter  renunciation  of  self,  an  entire  devotion  to  an  unselfish 
work,  and  an  unshaken  faith  in  God.  It  is  a  moral  genius, 
as  peculiar  and  as  much  a  gift  as  the  genius  of  painting, 
poetry,  or  music." 

"It  is  an  inspiration  to  do  the  work  of  humanity,  and  it 
presupposes  faith,"  said  Eva.  "You  know  the  Bible  says, 
'  He  that  cometh  to  God  must  believe  that  HE  is,  and  that 
he  is  a  rewarder  of  those  that  diligently  seek  him. '  ' 

The  result  of  that  fireside  talk  was  not  unfruitful.  The 
next  week  was  a  harvest  for  the  Home. 


THE   PEARL   CROSS  427 

In  blank  envelopes,  giving  no  names,  came  various  sums. 
Fifty  dollars,  with  the  added  note:  "From  a  believer  in 
human  nature."  This  was  from  Dr.  Campbell. 

A  hundred  dollars  was  found  in  another  envelope,  with 
the  note:  "To  help  up  the  fallen,  from  one  who  has  been 
down."  This  was  from  Bolton. 

Mr.  St.  John  sent  fifty  dollars,  with  the  words:  "From 
a  f ellow- worker. "  And,  finally,  Jim  Fellows  sent  fifty, 
with  the  words:  "From  one  of  the  boys." 

None  of  these  consulted  with  the  other;  each  contribu 
tion  was  a  silent  and  secret  offering.  Who  can  prove  that 
the  "Father  that  seeth  in  secret"  did  not  inspire  them? 


CHAPTEE   XLIX 

THE    UNPROTECTED    FEMALE 

"THE  Squantum  and  Patuxet  Manufacturing  Company 
have  concluded  not  to  make  any  dividends  for  the  current 
year."  Such  was  the  sum  and  substance  that  Miss  Dorcas 
gathered  from  a  very  curt  letter  which  she  had  just  received 
from  the  Secretary  of  that  concern,  at  the  time  of  the  semi 
annual  dividend.  The  causes  of  this  arrangement  were 
said  to  be  that  the  entire  income  of  the  concern  (which  it 
was  cheerfully  stated  had  never  been  so  prosperous)  was 
to  be  devoted  to  the  erection  of  a  new  mill  and  the  pur 
chase  of  new  machinery,  which  would  in  the  future  double 
the  avails  of  the  stock. 

Now,  as  society  is,  and,  for  aught  we  see,  as  it  must 
be,  the  masculine  half  of  mankind  have  it  all  their  own 
way;  and  the  cleverest  and  shrewdest  woman,  in  making 
investments,  has  simply  the  choice  between  what  this  or 
that  man  tells  her.  If  she  falls  by  chance  into  the  hands 
of  an  honest  man,  with  good  sense,  she  may  make  an  in 
vestment  that  will  be  secure  to  pay  all  the  expenses  of  her 
mortal  pilgrimage,  down  to  the  banks  of  Jordan;  but  if, 
as  quite  often  happens,  she  falls  into  the  hands  of  careless 
or  visionary  advisers,  she  may  suddenly  find  herself  in  the 
character  of  "  the  unprotected  female "  at  some  half-way 
station  of  life,  with  her  ticket  lost  and  not  a  cent  to  pur 
chase  her  further  passage. 

Now,  this  was  precisely  the  predicament  that  this  letter 
announced  to  Miss  Dorcas.  For  the  fact  was  that,  although 
she  and  her  sister  owned  the  house  they  lived  in,  yet 


THE   UNPROTECTED   FEMALE  429 

every  available  cent  of  income  that  supplied  their  establish 
ment  came  from  the  dividends  of  these  same  Squantum 
and  Patuxet  mills. 

It  is  a  fact,  too,  that  women,  however  strong  may  be 
their  own  sense  and  ability,  do,  as  a  general  fact,  rely  on 
the  judgment  of  the  men  of  the  family,  and  consider  their 
rulings  in  business  matters  final.  Miss  Dorcas  had  all  this 
propensity  intensified  by  the  Old  World  family  feeling. 
Her  elder  brother,  Dick  Vanderheyden,  was  one  of  those 
handsome,  plausible,  visionary  fellows  who  seem  born  to 
rule  over  womankind,  and  was  fully  disposed  to  magnify 
his  office.  Miss  Dorcas  worshiped  him  with  a  faith  which 
none  of  his  numerous  failures  abated.  The  cupboards  and 
closets  of  the  house  were  full  of  the  remains  of  inventions 
which,  he  had  demonstrated  by  figures  in  the  face  of  facts, 
ought  to  have  produced  millions,  and  never  did  produce 
anything  but  waste  of  money.  She  was  sure  that  he  was 
the  original  inventor  of  the  principle  of  the  sewing- 
machine  ;  and  how  it  happened  that  he  never  perfected  the 
thing,  and  that  somebody  else  stole  in  before  him  and  got 
it  all,  Miss  Dorcas  regarded  as  one  of  the  inscrutable  mys 
teries  of  Providence. 

Poor  Dick  Vanderheyden  was  one  of  those  permanent 
waiters  at  the  world's  pool,  like  the  impotent  man  in  the 
gospel.  When  the  angel  of  success  came  down  and  trou 
bled  the  waters,  there  was  always  another  who  stepped  in 
before  him  and  got  the  benefit.  Yet  there  was  one  thing 
that  never  left  him  to  the  last,  and  that  was  a  sweet-tem 
pered,  sunny  hopefulness,  in  which,  through  years  when 
the  family  fortune  had  been  growing  beautifully  less  in 
his  hands,  Dick  was  still  making  arrangements  which  were 
to  bring  in  wonderful  results,  till  one  night  a  sudden 
hemorrhage  from  the  lungs  settled  all  his  earthly  accounts 
in  an  hour,  and  left  Miss  Dorcas  and  Mrs.  Betsey  without 
a  male  relative  in  the  world. 


430  WE   AND   OUR  -NEIGHBORS 

One  of  the  last  moves  of  brother  Dick  had  been  to  take 
all  the  sisters'  United  States  stock  and  invest  it  for  them 
in  the  Squantum  and  Patuxet  Manufacturing  Company, 
where,  he  confidently  assured  them,  it  would  in  time  bring 
them  an  income  of  fifty  per  cent.  For  four  years  after  his 
death,  however,  only  a  moderate  dividend  was  declared  by 
the  company,  but  always  with  brilliant  promises  for  the 
future;  the  fifty  per  cent.,  like  the  "good  time  coming" 
in  the  song,  was  a  thing  to  look  forward  to,  as  the  end  of 
many  little  retrenchments  and  economies;  and  now  sud 
denly  comes  this  letter,  announcing  to  them  an  indefinite 
suspension  of  their  income. 

Mrs.  Betsey  could  scarcely  be  made  to  believe  it. 

"Why,  they've  got  all  our  money;  are  they  going  to 
keep  it,  and  not  pay  us  anything  ? " 

"That  seems  to  be  their  intention,'7  said  Miss  Dorcas 
grimly. 

"But,  Dorcas,  I  wouldn't  have  it  so.  I  'd  rather  have 
our  money  back  again  in  United  States  stock." 

"So  had  I." 

"Well,  if  you  write  and  ask  them  for  it,  and  tell  them 
that  you  must  have  it,  and  can't  get  along  without,  won't 
they  send  it  back  to  you  1 " 

"No,  they  won't  think  of  such  a  thing.  They  never 
do  business  that  way." 

"Won't?  Why,  I  never  heard  of  such  folks.  Why, 
there  's  no  justice  in  it." 

"You  don't  understand  these  things,  Betsey;  nor  I, 
very  well.  All  I  know  is,  that  Dick  took  our  money  and 
bought  stock  with  it,  and  we  are  stockholders  of  this 
company. " 

"And  what  is  being  a  stockholder? " 

"As  far  as  I  can  perceive,  it  is  this:  when  old  women 
like  you  and  me  are  stockholders,  it  means  that  a  company 
of  men  take  our  money  and  use  it  for  their  own  purposes, 


THE   UNPROTECTED   FEMALE  431 

and  pay  us  what  they  like,  when  it  comes  convenient;  and 
when  it 's  not  convenient,  they  don't  pay  us  at  all.  It  is 
borrowing  people's  money,  without  paying  interest." 

"Why,  that  is  horrid.  Why,  it 's  the  most  unjust  thing 
I  ever  heard  of,"  said  Mrs.  Betsey.  "Don't  you  think 
so,  Dorcas  ? " 

"  Well,  it  seems  so  to  me ;  but  women  never  understand 
business.  Dick  used  to  say  so.  The  fact  is,  old  women 
have  no  business  anywhere,"  said  Miss  Dorcas  bitterly. 
"It 's  time  we  were  out  of  the  world." 

"I'm  sure  I  haven't  wanted  to  live  so  very  much," 
said  Mrs.  Betsey  tremulously.  "I  don't  want  to  die,  but 
I  had  quite  as  lief  be  dead." 

"Come,  Betsey,  don't  let  us  talk  that  way,"  said  Miss 
Dorcas.  "We  sha'n't  gain  anything  by  flying  in  the  face 
of  Providence." 

"But,  Dorcas,  I  don't  think  it  can  be  quite  as  bad  as 
you  think.  People  couldn't  be  so  bad,  if  they  knew  just 
how  much  we  wanted  our  money.  Why,  we  haven't 
anything  to  go  on  —  only  think !  The  company  has  been 
making  money,  you  say  ?  " 

"Oh  yes,  never  so  large  profits  as  this  year;  but,  in 
stead  of  paying  the  stockholders,  they  have  voted  to  put 
up  a  new  mill  and  enlarge  the  business." 

"Who  voted  so?" 

"The  stockholders  themselves.  As  far  as  I  can  learn, 
that  means  one  or  two  men  who  have  bought  all  the  stock, 
and  now  can  do  what  they  like." 

"But  couldn't  you  go  to  the  stockholders'  meeting  and 
vote?" 

"What  good  would  it  do,  if  I  have  but  ten  votes  where 
each  of  these  men  has  five  hundred  ?  They  have  money 
enough.  They  don't  need  this  income  to  live  on,  and  so 
they  use  it,  as  they  say,  to  make  the  property  more  valu 
able;  and  perhaps,  Betsey,  when  we  are  both  dead,  it  will 


432  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

pay  fifty  per  cent,  to  somebody,  just  as  Dick  always  said  it 
would." 

"But,"  said  Mrs.  Betsey,  "of  what  use  will  that  be  to 
us,  when  what  we  want  is  something  to  live  on  now? 
Why,  we  can't  get  along  without  income,  Dorcas,  don't 
you  see  ? " 

"I  think  I  do,"  said  Miss  Dorcas  grimly. 

"Why,  why,  what  shall  we  do?" 

"Well,  we  can  sell  the  house,  I  suppose." 

"  Sell  the  house ! "  said  poor  little  Mrs.  Betsey,  aghast 
at  the  thought;  "and  where  could  we  go?  and  what  should 
we  do  with  all  our  things?  I  'd  rather  die,  and  done  with 
it;  and  if  we  got  any  money  and  put  it  into  anything, 
people  would  just  take  it  and  use  it,  and  not  pay  us  in 
come;  or  else  it  would  all  go  just  as  my  money  did  that 
Dick  put  into  that  Aurora  bank.  That  was  going  to  make 
our  everlasting  fortune.  There  was  no  end  to  the  talk 
about  what  it  would  do  —  and  all  of  a  sudden  the  bank 
burst  up,  and  my  money  was  all  gone  —  never  gave  me 
back  a  cent!  and  I  should  like  to  know  where  it  went  to. 
Somebody,  had  that  ten  thousand  dollars  of  mine,  but  it 
wasn't  me.  No,  we  won't  sell  the  house;  it's  all  we  've 
got  left,  and  as  long  as  it 's  here  we  've  got  a  right  to  be 
somewhere.  We  can  stay  here  and  starve,  I  suppose !  — 
you  and  I  and  Jack." 

Jack,  perceiving  by  his  mistress's  tones  that  something 
was  the  matter,  here  jumped  into  her  lap  and  kissed  her. 

"Yes,  you  poor  doggie,"  said  Mrs.  Betsey,  crying; 
"we'll  all  starve  together.  How  much  money  have  you 
got  left,  Dorcas  ?  " 

Miss  Dorcas  drew  out  an  old  portemonnaie  and  opened  it. 

"Twenty  dollars." 

"Oh,  go  'way,  Miss  Dorcas;  ye  don't  know  what  a  lot 
I 's  got  stowed  away  in  my  old  teapot! "  chuckled  a  voice 
from  behind  the  scenes,  and  Dinah's  woolly  head  and  bril- 


THE  UNPROTECTED   FEMALE  433 

liant  ivories  appeared  at  the  slide  of  the  china-closet,  where 
she  had  been  an  unabashed  and  interested  listener  to  the 
conversation. 

"Dinah,  I'm  surprised,"  said  Miss  Dorcas,  with  dig 
nity. 

"Well,  y'  can  be  surprised  and  git  over  it,"  said  Dinah, 
rolling  her  portly  figure  into  the  conversation.  "All  I 's 
got  to  say  is,  dere  ain't  no  use  for  Mis'  Betsey  here  to  be 
worritin'  and  gettin'  into  a  bad  spell  'bout  money,  so  long 
as  I 's  got  three  hundred  dollars  laid  up  in  my  teapot. 
'T  ain't  none  o'  your  rags  neither,"  said  Dinah,  who  was 
strong  on  the  specie  question  —  "good  bright  silver  dollars, 
and  gold  guineas,  and  eagles,  I  tucked  away  years  ago, 
when  your  pa  was  alive,  and  money  was  plenty.  Look 
a-heah  now !  "  —  and  Dinah  emphasized  her  statement  by 
rolling  a  handful  of  old  gold  guineas  upon  the  table  — 
"Dare  now;  see  dar!  Don't  catch  me  foolin'  away  no 
money  wid  no  banks  and  no  stockholders.  I  keeps  pretty 
tight  grip  o'  mine.  Tell  you,  'fore  I  'd  let  dem  gemmen 
hab  my  money  I  'd  braid  it  up  in  my  har  —  and  den  I  'd 
know  where  'twas  when  I  wanted  it." 

"Dinah,  you  dear  old  soul,"  said  Miss  Dorcas,  with  tears 
in  her  eyes,  "you  don't  think  we  'd  live  on  your  money?  " 

"Dun  no  why  you  shouldn't,  as  well  as  me  live  on 
yourn,"  said  Dinah.  "It's  all  in  de  family,  and  turn 
about 's  fair  play.  Why,  good  land!  Miss  Dorcas,  I  jest 
lotted  on  savin'  't  up  for  de  family.  You  can  use  mine 
and  give  it  back  ag'in  when  dat  ar  good  time  comes  Massa 
Dick  was  allers  a-tellin'  about." 

Mrs.  Betsey  fell  into  Dinah's  arms,  and  cried  on  her 
shoulder,  declaring  that  she  couldn't  take  a  cent  of  her 
money,  and  that  they  were  all  ruined,  and  fell  into  what 
Dinah  used  to  call  one  of  her  "bad  spells."  So  she  swept 
her  up  in  her  arms  forthwith  and  carried  her  upstairs  and 
put  her  to  bed,  amid  furious  dissentient  barkings  from 


434  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

Jack,  who  seemed  to  consider  it  his  duty  to  express  an 
opinion  in  the  matter. 

"Dar  now,  ye  aggrevatin'  critter,  lie  down  and  shet 
up,"  she  said  to  Jack,  as  she  lifted  him  on  to  the  bed  and 
saw  him  cuddle  down  in  Mrs.  Betsey's  arms  and  lay  his 
rough  cheek  against  hers. 

Dinah  remembered,  years  before,  her  young  mistress 
lying  weak  and  faint  on  that  same  spot,  and  how  there 
had  been  the  soft  head  of  a  baby  lying  where  Jack's  rough 
head  was  now  nestling,  and  her  heart  swelled  within  her. 

"Now,  then,"  she  said,  pouring  out  some  drops  and 
giving  them  to  her,  "you  jest  hush  up  and  go  to  sleep, 
honey.  Miss  Dorcas  and  I,  we  '11  fix  up  this  'ere.  It  '11 
all  come  straight  —  now  you  '11  see  it  will.  Why,  de  Lord 
ain't  gwine  to  let  you  starve.  Never  see  de  righteous 
forsaken.  Jest  go  to  sleep,  honey,  and  it  '11  be  all  right 
when  you  wake  up." 

Meanwhile,  Miss  Dorcas  had  gone  across  the  way  to 
consult  with  Eva.  The  opening  of  the  friendship  on  the 
opposite  side  of  the  way  had  been  a  relief  to  her  from  the 
desolateness  and  loneliness  of  her  life  circle,  and  she  had 
come  to  that  degree  of  friendly  reliance  that  she  felt  she 
could  state  her  dilemma  and  ask  advice. 

"I  don't  see  any  way  but  I  must  come  to  selling  the 
house  at  last,"  said  Miss  Dorcas;  "but  I  don't  know  how 
to  set  about  it;  and  if  we  have  to  leave,  at  our  age,  life 
won't  seem  worth  having.  I  'm  afraid  it  would  kill 
Betsey." 

"Dear  Miss  Dorcas,  we  can't  afford  to  lose  you,"  said 
Eva.  "You  don't  know  what  a  comfort  it  is  to  have  you 
over  there,  so  nice  and  handy  —  why,  it  would  be  forlorn 
to  have  you  go ;  it  would  break  us  all  up ! " 

"You  are  kind  to  say  so,"  said  Miss  Dorcas;  "but  I 
can't  help  feeling  that  the  gain  of  our  being  there  is  all  on 
one  side." 


THE   UNPROTECTED   FEMALE  435 

"But,  dear  Miss  Dorcas,  why  need  you  move?  See 
here.  A  bright  thought  strikes  me.  Your  house  is  so 
large!  Why  couldn't  you  rent  half  of  it?  You  really 
don't  need  it  all;  and  I  'm  sure  it  could  easily  be  arranged 
for  two  families.  Do  think  of  that,  please. " 

"If  it  could  be  done  —  if  anybody  would  want  it ! " 
said  Miss  Dorcas. 

"Oh,  just  let  us  go  over  this  minute  and  see,"  said 
Eva,  as  she  threw  a  light  cloud  of  worsted  over  her  head, 
and  seizing  Miss  Dorcas  by  the  arm,  crossed  back  with  her, 
talking  cheerfully. 

"  Here  you  have  it,  nice  as  possible.  Your  front  parlor 
—  you  never  sit  there;  and  it's  only  a  care  to  have  a 
room  you  don't  use.  And  then  this  great  empty  office 
back  here  —  a  dining-room  all  ready !  and  there  is  a  back 
shed  that  could  have  a  cooking-stove,  and  be  fitted  into  a 
kitchen.  Why,  the  thing  is  perfect;  and  there's  your 
income,  without  moving  a  peg!  See  what  it  is  to  have 
real  estate ! " 

"You  are  very  sanguine,"  said  Miss  Dorcas,  looking  a 
little  brightened  herself.  "I  have  often  thought  myself 
that  the  house  is  a  great  deal  larger  than  we  need;  but  I 
am  quite  helpless  about  such  matters.  We  are  so  out  of 
the  world.  I  know  nothing  of  business;  real  estate  agents 
are  my  horror;  and  I  have  no  man  to  advise  me." 

"Oh,  Miss  Dorcas,  wait  now  till  I  consult  Harry.  I  'ni 
sure  something  nice  could  be  arranged." 

"I  dare  say,"  said  Miss  Dorcas,  "if  these  rooms  were 
in  a  fashionable  quarter  we  might  let  them;  but  the  world 
has  long  since  left  our  house  in  the  rear." 

"Never  mind  that,"  said  Eva.  "You  see  we  don't 
mind  fashion,  and  there  may  be  neighbors  as  good  as  wre, 
of  the  same  mind." 

Eva  already  had  one  of  her  visions  in  her  head;  but  of 
this  she  did  not  speak  to  Miss  Dorcas  till  she  had  matured 


436  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

it.  She  knew  Jim  Fellows  had  been  for  weeks  on  the 
keen  chase  after  apartments,  and  that  none  yet  had  pre 
sented  themselves  as  altogether  eligible.  Alice  had  insisted 
on  an  economical  beginning,  and  the  utmost  prudence  as 
to  price;  and  the  result  had  been,  what  is  usual  in  such 
cases,  that  all  the  rooms  that  would  do  at  all  were  too  dear. 

Eva  saw  at  once  in  this  suite  of  rooms,  right  across  the 
way  from  them,  the  very  thing  they  were  in  search  of. 
The  rooms  were  large  and  sunny,  with  a  quaint,  old-fash 
ioned  air  of  bygone  gentility  that  made  them  attractive; 
and  her  artist  imagination  at  once  went  into  the  work  of 
brightening  up  their  tarnished  and  dusky  respectability 
with  a  nice  little  modern  addition  of  pictures  and  flowers, 
and  new  bits  of  furniture  here  and  there. 

Just  as  she  returned  from  her  survey,  she  found  Jim  in 
her  own  parlor,  with  a  thriving  pot  of  ivy.  "Well, 
here's  one  for  our  parlor  window,  when  we  find  one," 
said  he.  "I'm  a  boy  that  gets  things  when  I  see  them. 
Now  you  don't  often  see  an  ivy  so  thrifty  as  this,  and 
I  've  brought  it  to  you  to  take  care  of  till  I  find  the 
room !  " 

"Jim,"  said  Eva,  "I  believe  just  what  you  want  is  to 
be  found  right  across  the  way  from  us,  so  that  we  can  talk 
across  from  your  windows  to  ours." 

"What!  the  old  Yanderheyden  house?  Thunder!" 
said  Jim. 

Now,  Jim  was  one  of  the  class  of  boys  who  make  free 
use  of  "thunder"  in  conversation,  without  meaning  to 
express  anything  more  by  it  than  a  state  of  slight  surprise. 

"What's  up  now?"  he  added.  "I  should  as  soon  ex 
pect  Queen  Victoria  to  rent  Buckingham  Palace  as  that 
the  old  ladies  across  the  way  would  come  to  letting 
rooms ! " 

"Necessity  has  no  law,  Jim."  And  then  Eva  told  him 
Miss  Dorcas's  misfortune. 


THE   UNPROTECTED   FEMALE  437 

"Poor  old  girls!"  said  Jim.  "I  do  declare  it's  too 
thundering  bad.  I'll  go  right  over  and  rent  the  rooms; 
and  I  '11  pay  up  square,  too,  and  no  mistake.7' 

"Shall  I  go  with  you?" 

"Oh,  you  just  leave  that  to  me.  Two  are  all  that  are 
needed  in  a  bargain." 

In  a  few  minutes,  Jim  was  at  his  ease  in  front  of  Miss 
Dorcas,  saying :  — 

"Miss  Dorcas,  the  fact  is,  I  want  to  hire  a  suite  of 
rooms.  You  see,  I  'm  going  to  have  a  wife  before  long, 
and  nothing  will  suit  her  so  well  as  this  neighborhood. 
Now,  if  you  will  only  rent  us  half  of  your  house,  we  shall 
behave  so  beautifully  that  you  never  will  be  sorry  you  took 
us  in." 

Miss  Dorcas  apologized  for  the  rooms  and  furniture. 
They  were  old,  she  knew  —  not  in  modern  style  —  but 
such  as  they  were,  would  he  just  go  through  them?  and 
Jim  made  the  course  with  her.  And  the  short  of  the 
matter  was,  that  the  bargain  was  soon  struck.  Jim  stated 
frankly  the  sum  he  felt  able  to  pay  for  apartments;  to 
Miss  Dorcas  the  sum  seemed  ample  enough  to  relieve  all 
her  embarrassments,  and  in  an  hour  he  returned  to  the 
other  side,  having  completed  the  arrangement. 

"There,  now, — we're  anchored,  I  think.  The  old 
folks  and  Aunt  Maria  have  been  wanting  me  to  marry  and 
live  on  with  them  in  the  old  hive,  but  Jim  doesn't  put 
his  foot  into  that  trap,  if  he  knows  it.  My  wife  and  I 
must  have  our  own  establishment,  if  it 's  only  in  two 
rooms.  Now  it 's  all  settled,  if  Allie  likes  it,  and  I  know 
she  will.  By  George,  it 's  a  lucky  hit!  That  parlor  will 
brighten  up  capitally. " 

"You  know,  old  furniture  is  all  the  rage  now,"  said 
Eva,  "and  you  can  buy  things  here  and  there  as  you 
want." 

"Yes,"  said  Jim;  "you  know  I  did  buy  a  pair  of  brass 


438  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

andirons  when  I  was  going  to  ask  Allie  to  have  me,  and 
they  '11  be  just  the  things  for  the  fireplace  over  there. 
Miss  Dorcas  apologized  for  the  want  of  those  that  belonged 
there  by  saying  that  her  brother  had  taken  them  to  pieces 
to  try  some  experiments  in  brass  polishing,  and  never 
found  time  to  put  them  together  again,  and  so  parts  of 
them  got  lost.  I  told  her  it  was  a  special  providence  that 
I  happened  to  have  the  very  pair  that  were  needed  there ; 
and  there  's  a  splendid  sunny  window  for  the  ivies  on  the 
south  corner ! " 

"That  old  furniture  is  lovely,"  said  Eva.  "It 's  like  a 
dark,  rich  background  to  a  picture.  All  your  little  bright 
modern  things  will  show  so  well  over  it." 

"Well,  I'm  going  to  bring  Allie  down  to  go  over  it, 
this  minute,"  said  Jim,  who  was  not  of  the  class  that 
allow  the  grass  to  grow  under  their  feet. 

Meanwhile,  when  little  Mrs.  Betsey  came  down  to  din 
ner,  she  found  the  storm  over,  and  clear,  shining  after 
rain. 

"What,  Mr.  Fellows!"  she  exclaimed;  "that  dear, 
good  young  man  that  was  so  kind  to  Jack !  Why,  Dorcas, 
what  a  providence!  I  'm  sure  it  '11  be  a  mercy  to  have  a 
man  in  the  house  once  more ! " 

"Why,  I'm  sure,"  said  Miss  Dorcas,  "your  great  fear 
that  you  wake  me  up  every  night,  about,  is  that  there  is 
a  man  in  the  house !  " 

"Oh,  well,"  said  Mrs.  Betsey,  laughing  cheerfully, 
"you  know  what  I  mean.  I  mean  the  right  kind  of  a 
man.  I  've  thought  that  those  dreadful  burglars  and  crea 
tures  that  break  into  houses  where  there  's  old  silver  must 
find  us  out  —  because,  Dorcas,  really,  that  hat  that  we 
keep  on  the  entry  table  is  so  big  and  dusty,  and  so  differ 
ent  from  what  they  wear  now,  they  must  know  that  no 
man  wears  a  hat  like  that.  I  've  always  told  Dinah  that  — 
she  knows  I  have,  more  than  twenty  times."  A  snicker 


THE   UNPROTECTED   FEMALE  439 

from  the  adjacent  china-closet,  where  Dinah  was  listening, 
confirmed  this  statement. 

"Why,  it's  such  a  nice  thing.  Why,  there's  no  end 
to  it,"  said  Mrs.  Betsey,  whose  cheerfulness  increased  with 
reflection.  "A  real  live  man  in  the  house!  —  and  a  young 
man,  too !  —  and  such  a  nice  one ;  and  dear  Miss  Alice  — 
why,  only  think,  bringing  all  her  wedding  clothes  to  the 
house,  and  I  don't  doubt  she'll  show  them  all  to  me  — 
and  it  '11  be  so  nice  for  Jack!  won't  it,  Jack?  " 

Jack  barked  his  assent  vigorously,  and  a  second  explo 
sive  chuckle  from  the  china-closet  betrayed  Dinah's  pro 
found  sympathy.  The  faithful  creature  was  rolling  and 
boiling  in  waves  of  triumphant  merriment  behind  the 
scenes.  The  conversation  of  her  mistresses  in  fact  appeared 
to  be  a  daily  source  of  amusement  to  her,  and  Miss  Dorcas 
was  forced  to  wink  at  this  espionage,  in  consideration  of 
Dinah's  limited  sources  of  entertainment,  and  generally 
pretended  not  to  know  that  she  was  there.  On  the  present 
occasion,  Dinah's  contribution  to  the  interview  was  too 
evident  to  be  ignored,  but  Miss  Dorcas  listened  to  it  with 
indulgence.  A  good  prospect  of  regular  income  does,  after 
all,  strengthen  one's  faith  in  Providence,  and  dispose  one 
to  be  easily  satisfied  with  one's  fellows. 


CHAPTEE   L 

EVA  TO  HARRY'S  MOTHER 

DEAR  MOTHER, — You've  no  idea  how  things  have 
gone  on  within  a  short  time.  I  have  been  so  excited  and 
so  busy,  and  kept  in  such  a  state  of  constant  consultation, 
for  this  past  week,  that  I  have  had  no  time  to  keep  up  my 
bulletins  to  you. 

Well,  dear  mother,  it  is  at  last  concluded  that  we  are  to 
have  two  weddings  on  one  day,  the  second  week  after 
Easter,  when  Alice  is  to  be  married  to  Jim  Fellows,  and 
Angie  to  Mr.  St.  John. 

Easter  comes  this  year  about  the  latest  that  it  ever  does, 
so  that  we  may  hope  for  sunny  spring  weather,  and  at  least 
a  few  crocuses  and  hyacinths  in  the  borders,  as  good  omens 
for  the  future.  I  wish  you  could  choose  this  time  to  make 
your  long-promised  visit  and  see  how  gay  and  festive  we 
all  are.  Just  now,  every  one  is  overwhelmed  with  busi 
ness,  and  the  days  go  off  very  fast. 

Aunt  Maria  is  in  her  glory,  as  generalissimo  of  the  forces 
and  dictator  of  all  things.  It  is  for  just  such  crises  that 
she  was  born;  she  has  now  fairly  enough  to  manage  to 
keep  her  contented  with  everybody,  and  everybody  con 
tented  with  her  —  which,  by  the  bye,  is  not  always  the 
case  in  her  history. 

It  is  decreed  that  the  wedding  is  to  be  a  morning  one, 
in  Mr.  St.  John's  little  chapel;  and  that,  after  the  recep 
tion  at  mamma's,  Jim  will  start  with  Alice  to  visit  his 
family  friends,  and  Angie  and  St.  John  will  go  immedi 
ately  on  the  steamer  to  sail  for  Europe,  where  they  will 


EVA  TO  HARRY'S  MOTHER        441 

spend  the  summer  in  traveling  and  be  back  again  in  the 
autumn.  Meanwhile,  they  have  engaged  a  house  in  that 
part  of  the  city  where  their  mission  work  lies,  and  of 
course,  like  ours,  it  is  on  an  unfashionable  street  —  a  thing 
which  grieves  Aunt  Maria,  who  takes  every  occasion  to 
say  that  Mr.  St.  John,  being  a  man  of  independent  for 
tune,  is  entitled  to  live  genteelly.  I  am  glad,  because 
they  are  within  an  easy  distance  of  us,  which  will  be  nice. 
Aunt  Maria  and  mamma  are  to  see  to  getting  the  house  all 
ready  for  them  to  go  into  when  they  return. 

Bolton  is  going  over  with  them,  to  visit  Paris!  The 
fact  is  since  I  opened  communication  between  him  and 
Caroline,  her  letters  to  me  have  grown  short  and  infre 
quent,  and  her  letters  to  him  long  and  constant,  and  the 
effect  on  him  has  been  magical.  I  have  never  seen  him  in 
such  good  spirits.  Those  turns  of  morbid  depression  that 
he  used  to  have  seern  to  be  fading  away  gradually.  He 
has  been  with  us  so  much  that  I  feel  almost  as  if  he  were 
a  member  of  our  family,  and  I  cannot  but  feel  that  our 
home  has  been  a  shelter  and  a  strength  to  him.  What 
would  it  be  to  have  a  happy  one  of  his  own  ?  I  am  sure 
he  deserves  it,  if  ever  kindness,  unselfishness,  and  true 
nobleness  of  heart  deserved  it :  and  I  am  sure  that  Caroline 
is  wise  enough  and  strong  enough  to  give  him  just  the 
support  that  he  needs. 

Then  there  's  Alice's  engagement  to  Jim.  I  have  long 
foreseen  to  what  her  friendship  for  him  would  grow,  and 
though  she  had  many  hesitations,  yet  now  she  is  perfectly 
happy  in  it ;  and  only  think  how  nice  it  is !  They  are  to 
take  half  the  old  Vanderheyden  house,  opposite  to  us,  so 
that  we  can  see  the  lights  of  each  other's  hearths  across 
from  each  other's  windows.  Mother,  doesn't  it  seem  as 
if  our  bright,  cosy,  happy,  free-and-easy  home  was  throw 
ing  out  as  many  side-shoots  as  a  lilac  bush  1 

Just  think;  in  easy  vicinity,   we  shall  have  Jim  and 


442  WE  AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

Alice,  Angle  and  St.  John,  and,  as  I  believe,  Bolton  and 
Caroline.  We  shall  be  a  guild  of  householders,  who  hold 
the  same  traditions,  walk  by  the  same  rule,  and  mind  the 
same  things.  Won't  it  be  lovely  1  What  nice  "droppings 
in"  and  visitings  and  tea-drinkings  and  consultings  we 
shall  have!  And  it  is  not  merely  having  good  times 
either;  but,  mother,  the  more  I  think  of  it,  the  more  I 
think  the  making  of  bright,  happy  homes  is  the  best  way 
of  helping  on  the  world  that  has  been  discovered  yet.  A 
home  is  a  thing  that  can't  be  for  one's  own  self  alone  — 
at  least  the  kind  of  home  we  are  thinking  of;  it  reaches 
out  on  all  sides  and  helps  and  shelters  and  comforts  others. 
Even  my  little  experiment  of  a  few  months  ago  shows  me 
that;  and  I  know  that  Angie's  and  St.  John's  home  will 
be  even  more  so  than  ours.  Angie  was  born  to  be  a 
rector's  wife;  to  have  a  kind  word  and  a  smile  and  a  good 
deed  for  everybody;  to  love  everybody  dearly,  and  keep 
everybody  bright  and  in  good  spirits.  It  is  amazing  to  see 
the  change  she  has  wrought  in  St.  John.  He  was  fast 
getting  into  a  sort  of  stringent,  morbid  asceticism;  now  he 
is  so  gracious,  so  genial,  and  so  entertaining,  —  he  is  like 
a  rock,  in  June,  all  bursting  out  with  anemones  and  colum 
bines  in  every  rift. 

As  to  Jim  and  Alice,  you  ought  to  see  how  happy  they 
are  in  consulting  me  about  the  arrangements  of  their  future 
home  in  the  Vanderheyden  house.  And  the  best  of  it  is, 
to  see  how  perfectly  delighted  the  two  old  ladies  are  to 
have  them  there.  You  must  know  that  there  was  a  sudden 
failure  in  Miss  Dorcas's  income  which  would  have  made  it 
necessary  to  sell  the  house  had  it  not  been  for  just  this 
arrangement.  But  they  are  as  gracious  and  kind  about  it 
as  if  they  were  about  to  receive  guests;  and  every  improve 
ment  and  every  additional  touch  of  brightness  to  the  rooms 
seems  to  please  them  as  much  as  if  they  were  going  to  be 
married  themselves. 


EVA  TO  HARRY'S  MOTHER       443 

Miss  Dorcas  said  to  me  that  our  coming  to  live  in  their 
neighborhood  had  been  the  greatest  blessing  to  them  that 
ever  had  happened  for  years  —  that  it  had  opened  a  new 
life  to  them. 

As  to  Maggie,  dear  mother,  she  is  becoming  a  real  com 
fort  to  me.  I  do  think  that  all  the  poor  girl's  sorrows 
and  sufferings  have  not  been  in  vain,  and  that  she  is  now 
a  true  and  humble  Christian.  She  has  been  very  useful 
in  this  sudden  hurry  of  work  that  has  fallen  upon  us,  and 
seems  really  delighted  to  be  so.  In  our  group  of  families, 
Maggie  will  always  find  friends.  Angie  wants  her  to  come 
and  live  with  them  when  they  begin  housekeeping,  and  I 
think  I  shall  let  her  go. 

I  shall  never  forget  the  dreadful  things  I  saw  the  night 
I  went  after  her.  They  have  sunk  deep  into  my  heart; 
and  I  hope,  mother,  I  see  more  clearly  the  deepest  and 
noblest  purpose  of  life,  so  as  never  again  to  forget  it. 
But,  meantime,  a  thousand  little  cares  break  and  fritter 
themselves  on  my  heart,  like  waves  on  a  rock.  Everybody 
is  running  to  me,  every  hour.  I  am  consulter  and  sympa 
thizer  and  adviser,  from  the  shape  of  a  bow  and  the  posi 
tions  of  trimming  up  to  the  profoundest  questions  of 
casuistry.  They  all  talk  to  me,  and  I  divide  my  heart 
among  them  all,  and  so  the  days  fly  by  with  frightful 
rapidity,  and  I  fear  I  shall  get  little  time  to  write,  so  pray 
come  and  see  for  yourself. 

Your  loving  EVA. 


CHAPTEE   LI 

THE    HOUR    AND    THE    WOMAN 

IT  is  said  that  Queen  Elizabeth  could  converse  in  five 
languages,  and  dictate  to  three  secretaries  at  once,  in 
different  tongues,  with  the  greatest  ease  and  composure. 
Perhaps  it  might  have  been  so  —  let  us  not  quarrel  with 
her  laurels;  it  only  shows  what  women  can  do  if  they  set 
about  it,  and  is  not  a  whit  more  remarkable  than  Aunt 
Maria's  triumphant  management  of  all  the  details  of  two 
weddings  at  one  time. 

That  estimable  individual  has  not,  we  fear,  always  ap 
peared  to  advantage  in  this  history,  and  it  is  due  to  her 
now  to  say  that  nobody  that  saw  her  proceedings  could  help 
feeling  the  beauty  of  the  right  person  in  the  right  place. 

Many  a  person  is  held  to  be  a  pest  and  a  nuisance  be 
cause  there  is  n't  enough  to  be  done  to  use  up  his  capabili 
ties.  Aunt  Maria  had  a  passion  for  superintending  and 
directing,  and  all  that  was  wanting  to  bring  things  right 
was  an  occasion  when  a  great  deal  of  superintendence  and 
direction  was  wanting.  The  double  wedding  in  the  family 
just  fulfilled  all  the  conditions.  It  opened  a  field  to,  her 
that  everybody  was  more  than  thankful  to  have  her  occupy. 

Lovers,  we  all  know,  are,  ex  officio,  ranked  among  the 
incapables;  and  if,  while  they  were  mooning  round  in  the 
fairy  land  of  sentiment,  some  good,  strong,  active,  practi 
cal  head  were  not  at  work  upon  the  details  of  real  life, 
nothing  would  be  on  time  at  the  wedding.  Now,  if  this 
be  true  of  one  wedding,  how  much  more  of  two !  So  Aunt 
Maria  stepped  at  once  into  command  by  acclamation  and 


THE  HOUR  -AND   THE   WOMAN  445 

addressed  herself  to  her  work  as  a  strong  man  to  run  a  race ; 
and  while  Angle  and  St.  John  spent  blissful  hours  in  the 
back  parlor,  and  Jim  and  Alice  monopolized  the  library, 
Aunt  Maria  flew  all  over  New  York,  and  arranged  about 
all  the  towels  and  table-cloths  and  napkins  and  doilies, 
down  to  the  very  dish-cloths.  She  overlooked  armies  of 
sewing  women,  milliners,  and  mantua-makers,  —  the  most 
slippery  of  all  mortal  creatures,  —  and  drove  them  all  up  to 
have  each  her  quota  in  time.  She,  with  Mrs.  Van  Ars- 
del,  made  lists  of  people  to  be  invited,  and  busied  herself 
with  getting  samples  and  terms  from  fancy  stationers  for 
the  wedding  cards.  She  planned  in  advance  all  the  details 
of  the  wedding  feast,  and  engaged  the  cake  and  fruit  and 
ice  cream. 

Nor  did  she  forget  the  social  and  society  exigencies  of 
the  crisis. 

She  found  time,  dressed  in  her  best,  to  take  Mrs.  Van 
Arsdel  in  full  panoply  to  return  the  call  of  Mrs.  Dr. 
Gracey,  who  had  come,  promptly  and  properly,  with  the 
doctor,  to  recognize  Miss  Angelique  and  felicitate  about 
the  engagement  of  their  nephew. 

She  arranged  for  a  dinner-party  to  be  given  by  Mrs. 
Van  Arsdel,  where  the  doctor  and  his  lady  were  to  be  re 
ceived  into  family  alliance,  and  testimonies  of  high  consid 
eration  accorded  to  them.  Aunt  Maria  took  occasion,  in 
private  converse  with  Mrs.  Dr.  Gracey,  to  assure  her  of 
her  very  great  esteem  and  respect  for  Mr.  St.  John,  and 
her  perfect  conviction  that  he  was  on  the  right  road  now, 
and  that,  though  he  might  possibly  burn  a  few  more  can 
dles  in  his  chapel,  yet,  when  he  came  fully  under  family 
influences,  they  would  gradually  be  snuffed  out,  —  intimat 
ing  that  she  intended  to  be  aunt,  not  only  to  Arthur,  but 
to  his  chapel  and  his  mission  work. 

The  extraordinary  and  serene  meekness  with  which  that 
young  divine  left  every  question  of  form  and  etiquette  to 


446  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

her  management,  and  the  sort  of  dazed  humility  with  which 
he  listened  to  all  her  rulings  about  the  arrangements  of  the 
wedding  day,  had  inspired  in  Aunt  Maria's  mind  such 
hopes  of  his  docility  as  led  to  these  very  sanguine  anticipa 
tions. 

It  is  true  that,  when  it  came  to  the  question  of  renting 
a  house,  she  found  him  quietly  but  unalterably  set  on  a 
small  and  modest  little  mansion  in  the  unfashionable  neigh 
borhood  where  his  work  lay. 

"Arthur  is  going  on  with  his  mission,"  said  Angelique, 
"and  I  'm  going  to  help  him,  and  we  must  live  where  we 
can  do  most  good  "  —  a  reason  to  which  Aunt  Maria  was 
just  now  too  busy  to  reply,  but  she  satisfied  herself  by  dis 
cussing  at  length  the  wedding  affairs  with  Mrs.  Dr.  Gracey. 

"Of  course,  Mrs.  Gracey,"  she  said,  "we  all  feel  that  if 
dear  Dr.  Gracey  is  to  conduct  the  wedding  services,  every 
thing  will  be  in  the  good  old  way;  there '11  be  nothing 
objectionable  or  unusual." 

"Oh,  you  may  rely  on  that,  Mrs.  Wouvermans,"  replied 
the  lady.  "The  doctor  is  not  the  man  to  run  after  novel 
ties;  he  's  a  good  old-fashioned  Episcopalian.  Though  he 
always  has  been  very  indulgent  to  Arthur,  he  thinks,  as 
our  dear  bishop  does,  that  if  young  men  are  left  to  them 
selves,  and  not  fretted  by  opposition,  they  will  gradually 
outgrow  these  things." 

"Precisely  so,"  said  Aunt  Maria;  "just  what  I  have 
always  thought.  For  my  part  I  always  said  that  it  was 
safe  to  trust  the  bishop." 

Did  Aunt  Maria  believe  this?  She  certainly  appeared 
to.  She  sincerely  supposed  that  this  was  what  she  always 
had  thought  and  said,  and  quite  forgot  the  times  when  she 
used  to  wonder  "what  our  bishop  could  be  thinking  of,  to 
let  things  go  so."  It  was  one  blessed  facility  of  this  re 
markable  woman  that  she  generally  came  to  the  full  con 
viction  of  the  axiom  that  "whatever  is,  is  right,"  and  took 


THE    HOUR   AND   THE   WOMAN  447 

up  and  patronized  anything  that  would  succeed  in  spite 
of  her  best  efforts  to  prevent  it.  So,  in  announcing  the 
double  wedding  to  her  fashionable  acquaintance,  she  placed 
everything,  as  the  popular  saying  is,  best  foot  foremost. 

Mr.  Fellows  was  a  young  man  of  fine  talents,  great  in 
dustry,  and  elegant  manners,  a  great  favorite  in  society,  and 
likely  to  take  the  highest  rank  in  his  profession.  Alice 
had  refused  richer  offers  —  she  might  perhaps  have  done 
better  in  a  worldly  point  of  view,  but  it  was  purely  a  love 
match,  etc.,  etc.  And  Mr.  St.  John,  a  young  man  of  fine 
family  and  independent  fortune,  who  might  command  all 
the  elegances  of  life,  was  going  to  live  in  a  distant  and  ob 
scure  quarter,  to  labor  in  his  work.  These  facts  brought 
forth,  of  course,  bursts  of  sympathy  and  congratulation,  and 
Aunt  Maria  went  off  on  the  top  of  the  wave. 

Eva  had  but  done  her  aunt  justice  when  she  told  her 
mother  that  Aunt  Maria  would  be  all  the  more  amiable 
for  the  firm  stand  which  the  young  wife  had  taken  against 
any  interference  with  her  family  matters.  It  was  so. 
Aunt  Maria  was  as  balmy  to  Eva  as  if  that  discussion  had 
never  taken  place,  though  it  must  be  admitted  that  Eva 
was  a  very  difficult  person  to  keep  up  a  long  quarrel  with. 

But  just  at  this  hour,  when  the  whole  family  were  at 
her  feet,  when  it  was  her  voice  that  decided  every  ques 
tion,  when  she  knew  where  everything  was  and  was  to  be, 
and  when  everything  was  to  be  done,  she  was  too  well 
pleased  to  be  unamiable.  She  was  the  spirit  of  the  whole 
affair,  and  she  plumed  herself  joyously  when  all  the  callers 
at  the  house  said  to  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel,  "Dear  me!  what 
would  you  do,  if  it  were  not  for  your  sister  1 "  Verily  she 
had  her  reward. 


CHAPTER   LII 


"Now  see  here,"  said  Jim,  coming  in  upon  Eva  as  she 
sat  alone  in  her  parlor,  "I  've  got  something  on  my  mind 
I  want  to  talk  with  you  about.  You  see,  Alice  and  I  are 
to  be  married  at  the  same  time  with  Angie  and  St.  John. " 

"Yes,  I  see  it." 

"Well,  now,  what  I  want  to  say  is,  that  I  really  hope 
there  won't  be  anything  longer  and  harder  and  more  cir 
cumlocutory  to  be  got  through  with  on  the  occasion  than 
just  what 's  in  the  Prayer-Book,  for  that 's  all  I  can  stand. 
I  can't  stand  Prayer-Book  with  the  variations,  now  I  really 
can't." 

"  Well,  Jim,  what  makes  you  think  there  will  be  Prayer- 
Book  with  the  variations  ?  " 

"Oh,  well,  I  attended  a  ritualistic  wedding  once,  and 
there  was  such  an  amount  of  processing  and  chanting,  and 
ancient  and  modern  improvements,  that  it  was  just  like  a 
show.  There  were  the  press  reporters  elbowing  and  push 
ing  to  get  the  best  places  to  write  it  up  for  the  papers,  and, 
for  my  part,  I  think  it 's  in  confounded  bad  taste,  and  I 
couldn't  stand  it;  you  know,  now,  I  'm  a  nervous  fellow, 
and  if  I  've  got  to  take  part  in  the  exercises,  they  '11  have 
to  '  draw  it  mild, '  or  Allie  and  I  will  have  to  secede  and 
take  it  by  ourselves.  I  could  n't  go  such  a  thing  as  that 
wedding;  I  never  should  come  out  alive." 

"Well,  Jim,  I  don't  believe  there's  any  reason  for  ap 
prehension.  In  the  first  place,  the  ceremony,  as  to  its 
mode  and  form,  always  is  supposed  to  be  conducted  accord- 


EVA'S   CONSULTATIONS  449 

ing  to  the  preferences  of  the  bride's  family,  and  we  all  of 
us  should  be  opposed  to  anything  which  would  draw  remark 
and  comment,  as  being  singular  and  unusual  on  such  an 
occasion. " 

"I  'm  glad  to  hear  that,"  said  Jim. 

"And  then,  Jim,  Mr.  St.  John's  uncle,  Dr.  Gracey,  is 
to  perform  the  ceremony,  and  he  is  one  of  the  most  re 
spected  of  the  conservative  Episcopal  clergymen  in  New 
York;  and  it  is  entirely  out  of  the  question  to  suppose 
that  he  would  take  part  in  anything  of  the  sort  you  fear, 
or  which  would  excite  comment  as  an  innovation.  Then, 
again,  I  think  Mr.  St.  John  himself  has  so  much  natural 
refinement  and  just  taste  that  he  would  not  wish  his  own 
wedding  to  become  a  theme  for  gossip  and  a  gazing  stock 
for  the  curious." 

"Well,  I  didn't  know  about  St.  John;  I  was  a  little 
afraid  we  should  be  obliged  to  do  something  or  other,  be 
cause  they  did  it  in  the  catacombs,  or  the  Middle  Ages,  or 
in  Edward  the  Sixth's  time,  or  some  such  dodge.  I 
thought  I  'd  just  make  sure." 

"Well,  I  think  Mr.  St.  John  has  gone  as  far  in  those 
directions  as  he  ever  will  go.  He  has  been  living  alone 
up  to  this  winter.  He  has  formed  his  ideas  by  himself 
in  solitude.  Now  he  will  have  another  half  to  himself; 
he  will  see  in  part  through  the  eyes,  and  feel  through  the 
heart,  of  a  sensible  and  discreet  woman  —  for  Angie  is 
that.  The  society  he  has  met  at  our  house  in  such  men  as 
Dr.  Campbell  and  others  has  enlarged  his  horizon,  — 
given  him  new  points  of  vision,  —  so  that  I  think  the  too 
great  tendencies  he  may  have  had  in  certain  directions  have 
been  insensibly  checked." 

"I  wish  they  may,"  said  Jim,  "for  he  is  a  good  fellow, 
and  so  much  like  one  of  the  primitive  Christians  that  I 
really  want  him  to  get  all  the  credit  that  belongs  to  him." 

"Oh,  well,  you  '11  see,  Jim.      When  a  man  is  so  sincere 


450  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

and  good,  and  labors  with  a  good  wife  to  help  him,  you  '11 
see  the  difference.  But  here  comes  little  Mrs.  Betsey, 
Jim.  I  promised  to  get  her  up  a  cap  for  the  occasion." 

"Well,  I'm  off;  only  be  sure  you  make  matters  secure 
about  the  ceremony,"  and  off  went  Jim,  and  in  came  little 
Mrs.  Betsey. 

"It's  so  good  of  you,  dear  Mrs.  Henderson,  to  under 
take  to  make  me  presentable.  You  know  Dorcas  hasn't 
the  least  interest  in  these  things.  Dorcas  is  so  indepen 
dent,  she  never  cares  what  the  fashion  is.  Now,  she  isn't 
doing  a  thing  to  get  ready.  She  's  just  going  in  that  satin 
gown  that  she  had  made  twenty  years  ago,  with  a  great 
lace  collar  as  big  as  a  platter;  and  she  sits  there  just  as 
easy  reading  Pope's  '  Essay  on  Man,'  and  here  I  'm  all  in 
a  worry;  but  I  can't  help  it.  I  like  to  look  a  little  like 
other  folks,  you  know.  I  don't  want  people  to  think  I  'm 
a  queer  old  woman." 

"Certainly,  it's  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world," 
said  Eva,  as  she  stepped  into  the  little  adjoining  work 
room,  and  brought  out  a  filmy  cap,  trimmed  with  the  most 
delicate  shade  of  rosy  lilac  ribbons.  "There!"  she  said, 
settling  it  on  Mrs.  Betsey's  head,  and  tying  a  bow  under 
her  chin,  "if  anybody  says  you're  not  a  beauty  in  this, 
I  'd  like  to  ask  them  why." 

"I  know  it 's  silly  at  my  age,  but  I  do  like  pretty 
things,"  said  Mrs.  Betsey,  looking  at  herself  with  appro 
bation  in  the  glass,  "  and  all  the  more  that  it 's  so  very 
kind  of  you,  dear  Mrs.  Henderson." 

"Me?  Oh,  I  like  to  do  it.  I  'm  a  born  milliner,"  said 
Eva. 

"And  now  I  want  to  ask  a  favor.  Do  you  think  it 
would  do  for  us  to  take  our  Dinat  to  church  to  see  the 
ceremony?  I  don't  know  anybody  that  could  enjoy  it 
more,  and  Dinah  has  so  few  pleasures." 

"Why,    certainly.      Dinah!     my    faithful     adviser    and 


EVA'S  CONSULTATIONS  451 

help  in  time  of  need?  Why,  of  course,  give  my  compli 
ments  to  her,  and  tell  her  I  shall  depend  on  seeing  her 
there." 

"Dinah  is  so  delighted  at  the  thought  that  your  sister 
and  Mr.  Fellows  are  coming  to  live  with  us,  she  is  busy 
cleaning  their  rooms,  and  does  it  with  a  will.  You  know 
Mr.  Fellows  has  just  that  gay,  pleasant  sort  of  way  that 
delights  all  the  servants,  and  she  says  your  sister  is  such 
a  beauty ! " 

"Well,  be  sure  and  tell  Dinah  to  come  to  the  wedding, 
and  she  shall  have  a  slice  of  the  cake  to  dream  on." 

"I  think  I  shall  feel  so  much  safer  when  we  have  a 
man  in  the  house,"  continued  Mrs.  Betsey.  "You  see,  we 
have  so  much  silver,  and  so  many  things  of  that  kind,  and 
Dorcas  frightens  me  to  death,  because  she  will  have  the 
basket  lugged  up  into  our  room  at  night.  I  tell  her  if 
she  'd  only  set  it  outside  in  the  entry,  then  if  the  burglars 
came  they  could  just  go  off  with  it,  without  stopping  to 
murder  us;  but  if  it  was  in  our  room,  why,  of  course,  they 
would.  The  fact  is,  I  have  got  so  nervous  about  burglars 
that  I  am  up  and  down  two  or  three  times  a  night." 

"But  you  have  Jack  to  take  care  of  you." 

"Jack  is  a  good  watch-dog  —  he  's  very  alert;  but  the 
trouble  is,  he  barks  just  as  loud  when  there  isn't  anything 
going  on  as  when  there  is.  Night  after  night,  that  dog  has 
started  us  both  up  with  such  a  report,  and  I  'd  go  all  over 
the  house  and  find  nothing  there.  Sometimes  I  think  he 
hears  people  trying  the  doors  or  windows.  Altogether, 
I  think  Jack  frightens  me  more  than  he  helps,  though  I 
know  he  does  it  all  for  the  best,  and  I  tell  Dorcas  so  when 
he  wakes  her  up.  You  know  experienced  people  always  do 
say  that  a  small  dog  is  the  very  safest  thing  you  can  have ; 
but  when  Mr.  Fellows  comes  I  shall  really  sleep  peaceably. 
And  now,  Mrs.  Henderson,  you  don't  think  that  light 
mauve  silk  of  mine  will  be  too  young  looking  for  me  1 " 


452  WE  AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

"No,  indeed,"  said  Eva.  "Why  shouldn't  we  all 
look  as  young  as  we  can  1  " 

"I  haven't  worn  it  for  more  than  thirty  years;  but  the 
silk  is  good  as  ever,  and  your  little  dressmaker  has  made 
it  over  with  an  overskirt,  and  Dinah  is  delighted  with  it, 
and  says  it  makes  me  look  ten  years  younger ! " 

"Oh!  well  I  must  come  over  and  see  it  on  you." 

"  Would  you  care  ? "  said  Mrs.  Betsey,  delighted. 
"How  good  you  are;  and  then  I '11  show  you  the  toilet 
cushions  I  've  been  making  for  the  dear  young  ladies;  and 
Dorcas  is  going  to  give  each  of  them  a  pair  of  real  old 
India  vases  that  have  been  in  the  family  ever  since  we  can 
remember. " 

"Why,  you  '11  be  robbing  yourselves." 

"No,  indeed;  it  Avould  be  robbing  ourselves  not  to  give 
something,  after  all  the  kindness  you  've  shown  us." 

And  Eva  went  over  to  the  neighboring  house  with  Mrs. 
Betsey;  and  entered  into  all  the  nice  little  toilet  details 
with  her;  and  delighted  Dinah  with  an  invitation  in  per 
son;  and  took  a  sympathizing  view  of  Dinah's  new  bonnet 
and  shawl,  which  she  pronounced  entirely  adequate  to  the 
occasion;  and  thus  went  along,  sowing  little  seeds  of  plea 
sure  to  make  her  neighbors  happier  —  seeds  which  were  to 
come  up  in  kind  thoughts  and  actions  on  their  part  by 
and  by. 


CHAPTER   LIII 

WEDDING    PRESENTS 

ST.  JOHN  and  Angle  were  together,  one  evening,  in 
the  room  that  had  been  devoted  to  the  reception  of  the 
wedding  presents.  This  room  had  been  Aunt  Maria's 
pride  and  joy,  and  already  it  had  assumed  quite  the  ap 
pearance  of  a  bazaar,  for  the  family  connections  of  the  Van 
Arsdels  were  large,  and  numbered  many  among  the  richer 
classes.  Arthur's  uncle,  Dr.  Gracey,  and  the  family  con 
nections  through  him  were  also  people  in  prosperous 
worldly  circumstances,  and  remarkably  well  pleased  with 
the  marriage;  and  so  there  had  been  a  great  abundance  of 
valuable  gifts.  The  door-bell  for  the  last  week  or  two  had 
been  ringing  incessantly,  and  Aunt  Maria  had  eagerly  seized 
the  parcels  from  the  servant  and  borne  them  to  the  deposi 
tory,  and  fixed  their  stations  with  the  cards  of  the  givers 
conspicuously  displayed. 

Of  course  the  reader  knows  that  there  were  the  usual 
amount  of  berry-spoons,  and  pie-knives,  and  crumb- scrap 
ers  ;  of  tea-spoons  and  coffee-spoons ;  of  silver  tea-services ; 
of  bracelets  and  chains  and  studs  and  brooches  and  shawl- 
pins  and  cashmere  shawls  and  laces.  Nobody  could  deny 
that  everything  was  arranged  so  as  to  make  the  very  most 
of  it. 

Angie  was  showing  the  things  to  St.  John,  in  one  of 
those  interminable  interviews  in  which  engaged  people  find 
so  much  to  tell  each  other.  "Really,  Arthur,"  she  said, 
"it  is  almost  too  much.  Everybody  is  giving  to  me,  just 
at  a  time  when  I  am  so  happy  that  I  need  it  less  than  ever 


454  WE   AND   OUR   NEIGHBORS 

I  did  in  my  life.  I  can't  help  feeling  as  if  it  was  more 
than  my  share." 

Of  course  Arthur  didn't  think  so;  he  was  in  that  mood 
that  he  couldn't  think  anything  on  land  or  sea  was  too 
much  to  be  given  to  Angie. 

"And  look  here,"  she  said,  pointing  him  to  a  stand 
which  displayed  a  show  of  needle-books  and  pincushions, 
and  small  matters  of  that  kind,  "just  look  here  —  even  the 
little  girls  of  my  sewing-class  must  give  me  something. 
That  needle-book,  little  Lottie  Price  made.  Where  she 
got  the  silk  I  don't  know,  but  it 's  quite  touching.  See 
how  nicely  she's  done  it!  It  makes  me  almost  cry  to 
have  poor  people  want  to  make  me  presents." 

"  Why  should  we  deny  them  that  pleasure  —  the  great 
est  and  purest  in  the  world1?  "  said  St.  John.  "It  is  more 
blessed  to  give  than  to  receive." 

"Well,  then,  Arthur,  I  '11  tell  you  what  I  was  thinking 
of.  I  wouldn't  dare  tell  it  to  anybody  else,  for  they'd 
think  perhaps  I  was  making  believe  to  be  better  than  I 
was;  but  I  was  thinking  it  would  make  my  wedding 
brighter  to  give  gifts  to  poor,  desolate  people  who  really 
need  them  than  to  have  all  this  heaped  upon  me." 

Then  Arthur  told  her  how,  in  some  distant  ages  of  faith 
and  simplicity,  Christian  weddings  were  always  celebrated 
by  gifts  to  the  poor. 

"Now,  for  example,"  said  Angie,  "that  poor,  little, 
pale  dressmaker  that  Aunt  Maria  found  for  me,  —  she  has 
worked  day  and  night  over  my  things,  and  I  can't  help 
wanting  to  do  something  to  brighten  her  up.  She  has 
nothing  but  hard  work  and  no  holidays ;  no  lover  to  come 
and  give  her  pretty  things,  and  take  her  to  Europe;  and 
then  she  has  a  sick  mother  to  take  care  of  —  only  think. 
Now,  she  told  me,  one  day,  she  was  trying  to  save 
enough  to  get  a  sewing-machine." 

"Very  well,"  said  Arthur,  "if  you  want  to  give  her  one, 


WEDDING   PRESENTS  455 

we  '11  go  and  look  one  out  to-morrow  and  send  it  to  her, 
with  a  card  for  the  ceremony,  so  there  will  be  one  glad 
heart." 

"Arthur,  you  "  — 

But  what  Angie  said  to  Arthur,  and  how  she  rewarded 
him,  belongs  to  the  literature  of  Eden  —  it  cannot  be 
exactly  translated. 

Then  they  conferred  about  different  poor  families,  whose 
wants  and  troubles  and  sorrows  were  known  to  those  two, 
and  a  wedding  gift  was  devised  to  be  sent  to  each  of 
them ;  and  there  are  people  who  may  believe  that  the  de 
vising  and  executing  of  these  last  deeds  of  love  gave  Angie 
and  St.  John  more  pleasure  than  all  the  silver  and  jewelry 
in  the  wedding  bazaar. 

"I  have  reserved  a  place  for  our  Sunday-school  to  be 
present  at  the  ceremony,"  said  Arthur;  "and  there  is  to 
be  a  nice  little  collation  laid  for  them  in  my  study ;  and 
we  must  go  in  there  a  few  minutes  after  the  ceremony, 
and  show  ourselves  to  them,  and  bid  them  good-by  before 
we  go  to  your  mother's." 

"Arthur,  that  is  exactly  what  I  was  thinking  of.  I 
believe  we  think  the  same  things  always.  ]N"ow,  I  want 
to  say  another  thing.  You  wanted  to  i:now  what  piece  of 
jewelry  you  should  get  for  my  wedding  present." 

"Well,  darling?" 

"  Well,  I  have  told  Aunt  Maria  and  mamma  and  all  of 
them  that  your  wedding  gift  to  me  was  something  I  meant 
to  keep  to  myself;  that  I  would  not  have  it  put  on  the 
table,  or  shown,  or  talked  about.  I  did  this,  in  the  first 
place,  as  a  matter  of  taste.  It  seems  to  me  that  a  marriage 
gift  ought  to  be  something  sacred  between  us  two. " 

"  Like  the  white  stone  with  the  new  name  that  no  man 
knoweth  save  him  that  receiveth  it, "  said  St.  John. 

"Yes;  just  like  that.  Well,  then,  Arthur,  get  me  only 
a  plain  locket  with  your  hair  in  it,  and  give  all  the  rest  of 


456  WE  AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

the  money  to  these  uses  we  talked  about,  and  I  will  count 
it  my  present.  It  will  be  a  pledge  to  me  that  I  shall  not 
be  a  hindrance  to  you  in  your  work,  but  a  help;  that  you 
will  do  more  and  not  less  good  for  having  me  for  your 
wife." 

What  was  said  in  reply  to  this  was  again  in  the  super- 
angelic  dialect,  and  untranslatable ;  but  these  two  children 
of  the  kingdom  understood  it  gladly,  for  they  were,  in  all 
the  higher  and  nobler  impulses,  of  one  heart  and  one  soul. 

"As  to  the  ceremony,  Arthur,"  said  Angie,  "you  know 
how  very  loving  and  kind  your  uncle  has  been  to  us.  He 
has  been  like  a  real  father;  and  since  he  is  to  perform  it,  I 
hope  there  will  be  nothing  introduced  that  would  be  em 
barrassing  to  him  or  make  unnecessary  talk  and  comment. 
Just  the  plain,  usual  service  of  the  Prayer-Book  will  be 
enough,  will  it  riot  ?  " 

"Just  as  you  say,  my  darling;  this,  undoubtedly,  is 
your  province." 

"I  think,"  said  Angie,  "that  there  are  many  things  in 
themselves  beautiful  and  symbolic,  and  that  might  be  full 
of  interest  to  natures  like  yours  and  mine,  that  had  better 
be  left  alone  if  they  offend  the  prejudices  of  others, 
especially  of  dear  and  honored  friends." 

"I  don't  know  but  you  are  right,  Angie;  at  any  rate, 
our  wedding,  so  far  as  that  is  concerned,  shall  have  nothing 
in  it  to  give  offense  to  any  one." 

"Sometimes  I  think,"  said  Angie,  "we  please  God  by 
giving  up,  for  love's  sake,  little  things  we  would  like  to 
do  in  his  service,  more  than  by  worship." 

"  Well,  dear,  that  principle  has  a  long  reach.  We  will 
talk  more  about  it  by  and  by ;  but  now,  good-night !  —  or 
your  mother  will  be  scolding  you  again  for  sitting  up  late. 
Somehow,  the  time  does  slip  away  so  when  we  get  to 
talking." 


CHAPTER   LIY 

MARKIED    AND    A' 

WELL,  the  day  of  days  came  at  last,  and  a  fairer  May 
morning  never  brightened  the  spire  of  old  Trinity  or  woke 
the  sparrows  of  the  Park.  Even  the  dingy  back  garden  of 
the  Vanderheyden  house  had  bubbled  out  in  golden  crocus 
and  one  or  two  struggling  hyacinths,  and  the  old  lilacs  by 
the  chamber  windows  were  putting  forth  their  first  dusky, 
sweet-scented  buds.  In  about  half  a  dozen  houses,  every 
body  was  up  early,  with  heads  full  of  wedding  dresses,  and 
wedding  fusses,  and  wedding  cake.  Aunt  Maria,  like  a 
sergeant  of  police,  was  on  hand,  as  wide  awake  and  as  fully 
possessed  of  the  case  as  it  was  possible  for  mortal  woman 
to  be.  She  was  everywhere,  —  seeing  to  everything,  re 
proving,  rebuking,  exhorting,  and  pushing  matters  into  line 
generally. 

This  was  her  hour  of  glory,  and  she  was  mistress  of 
the  situation.  Mrs.  Van  Arsdel  was  sweet  and  loving, 
bewildered  and  tearful;  and  wandered  hither  and  thither 
doing  little  bits  of  things  and  remorselessly  snubbed  by 
her  energetic  sister,  who,  after  pushing  her  out  of  the  way 
several  times,  finally  issued  the  order:  "Nelly,  I  do  wish 
you  'd  go  to  your  room  and  keep  quiet.  I  understand  what 
I  want,  and  you  don't." 

The  two  brides,  in  their  respective  dressing-rooms,  were 
receiving  those  attentions  which  belong  to  the  central  fig 
ures  of  the  tableau. 

Marie,  the  only  remaining  unmarried  sister,  who  had 
been  spending  the  winter  in  Philadelphia,  had  charge,  as 


458  WE  AND   OUR  NEIGHBORS 

dressing-maid,  of  one  bride,  and  Eva  of  the  other.  There 
was  the  usual  amount  of  catastrophes  —  laces  that  broke  in 
critical  moments,  when  somebody  had  to  be  sent  tearing  out 
distractedly  for  another;  gloves  that  split  across  the  back 
on  trying;  coiffures  that  came  abominably  late,  after  keep 
ing  everybody  waiting,  and  then  had  to  be  pulled  to  pieces 
and  made  all  over;  in  short,  no  one  item  of  the  delightful 
jumble  of  confusions,  incident  to  a  wedding,  was  missing. 

The  little  chapel  was  dressed  with  flowers,  and  was  a 
bower  of  sweetness;  and,  as  St.  John  had  planned,  there 
was  space  reserved  for  the  Sunday-school  children  and  the 
regular  attendants  of  the  mission. 

Besides  those,  there  was  a  goodly  select  show  of  what 
Aunt  Maria  looked  upon  as  the  choice  jewels  of  rank  and 
fashion. 

Dr.  Gracey  performed  the  double  ceremony  with  great 
dignity  and  solemnity;  but  the  reporters,  who  fought  for 
good  places  to  see  the  show,  and  Miss  Gusher  and  Miss 
Vapors,  were  disappointed.  There  was  only  the  plain  old 
Church  of  England  service  —  neither  less  nor  more. 

Mrs.  Van  Arsdel,  and  other  soft-hearted  ladies,  in  differ 
ent  degrees  of  family  connection,  did  the  proper  amount  of 
tender  weeping  upon  their  best  lace  pocket-handkerchiefs; 
and  everybody  said  the  brides  looked  so  lovely.  Miss 
Dorcas  and  Mrs.  Betsey  had  excellent  situations  to  see  the 
whole,  and  Dinah,  standing  right  behind  them,  broke  out 
into  ejaculations  of  smothered  rapture,  from  time  to  time, 
in  Mrs.  Betsey's  ear.  Dinah  was  so  boiling  over  with 
delight  that,  but  for  this  tolerated  escape-valve,  there 
might  have  been  some  explosion. 

Just  as  the  ceremonies  had  closed,  Mrs.  Betsey  heard 
Dinah  whispering  hoarsely,  "Good  Lor'!  if  dar  ain't 
Jack!" 

And  sure  enough,  Jack  was  there  in  the  church,  sitting 
up  as  composedly  as  a  vestryman,  and  apparently  enjoying 


MARRIED   AND   A'  459 

the  spectacle.  When  one  of  the  ushers  approached  to  take 
him  out,  he  raised  himself  on  his  haunches  and  waved  his 
paws  with  affability. 

Jim  caught  sight  of  him  just  as  the  wedded  party  were 
turning  from  the  altar  to  leave  the  church,  and  the  sight 
was  altogether  too  much  for  his  risibility.  The  fact  was 
that  Jack  had  been  the  subject  of  great  discussion  and  an 
elaborate  locking  up  that  morning.  But  divining  an  inten 
tion  on  the  part  of  his  mistresses  to  go  somewhere,  he  had 
determined  not  to  be  left.  So  he  had  leaped  out  of  a  win 
dow  upon  a  back  shed,  and  thence  to  the  ground,  and  had 
followed  the  coach  at  discreet  distance,  and  so  was  "in  at 
the  death." 

Well,  courteous  reader,  a  marriage  is  by  common  consent 
the  end  of  a  story,  and  we  have  given  you  two.  "We 
and  Our  Neighbors,"  therefore,  are  ready  to  receive  your 
congratulations. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


26* 


Of 


REC'D  [  nAPP?    19728 & 


APR    5  1967  7  A 


HS.  ca 


78 


UEC  2  1  1984 


DECEIVED 


MAR2T67-P 


i_~~-    --- 


CIRCULATION  DEPT. 


1  8  1968  3  K 


REC'D  LD    OCT 


8  b 
2^72- 


JUN     4  1978 


GENERAL  LIBRARY  -  U.C.  BERKELEY 


8000718077 


